Berlin, Germany: Week 2 Reflections
When I first learned about the opportunity to come to Berlin I was overjoyed. I had certain expectations about the classes and the overall experience. The experience however has been different from what I imagined but an enlightening one. I did not expect the culture hear to be this different from American culture and thought it would be a seamless adjustment but I was very wrong. The difference in culture along with the classes has so far broadened my knowledge on the connections between culture and global public health. Global public health is about improving the conditions of all people worldwide with a long time goal of achieving equity. Culture plays a role in that through the practices and habits of people in different areas of the world. In developing countries the health of the people is relatively lower due to their struggles in providing adequate and efficient care for their populations. They are mainly affected by preventable diseases and illnesses which could easily be dealt with if they had the resources to address the issue. The way people in different areas go about their lives and are treated by their government determines the effectiveness of the health care.
From what I have seen lately I have formed some connections myself. One of the first aspects I noticed was how smoking and drinking is much more apart of the culture. I feel like my observations would in some way correlate with an increased instance of lung cancer and other types of cancer connected with smoking and drinking. I also noticed how water is harder to acquire for free here than it is the United States. When I was at a restaurant recently the water was a higher price than the soft drinks on the menu. Also unlike the US they do not offer water for free at the start of the meal and there are no free refills. This factor could also play a role in a less healthy population but the excessive portion sizes in US could also lead to the same result. However I also noticed how I did not see a plethora of overweight individuals like in the US.
In terms of the cultural aspect people here are of different backgrounds and tend not to be able to distinguish different people. When a group of my friends were eating at a restaurant a waiter made the assumption we were from Africa. I could see how this could be a problem for people here in terms of their cultural identity. That bias could also play a role in the type of medical care and care in general those individuals receive.