MAI VANG (MPH '11) says the idea of running for public office hadn’t occurred to her when she left her hometown of Sacramento in 2008 to enroll in the Fielding School’s joint MPH/MA in Asian American Studies program. But through her graduate education, Vang — the eldest of 16 children born to Hmong refugee parents from Laos — grew determined to return to make a difference for her community, both from outside and within the political system.
ELAINE OWUSU WILL NEVER FORGET the summer between her junior and senior years at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
CARLOS CHAVEZ (MPH ’18) already had an established career at health insurance provider Anthem Inc. when he decided to enroll in FSPH’s Executive Master of Public Health (EMPH) to fill in gaps in his health policy and management knowledge. The program made it possible for Chavez to take classes toward his degree on weekends while continuing in his full-time job. But right before he was about to graduate, Chavez realized he wanted to tack on another skill that seemed to be in heavy demand.
Each summer, Fielding School students gain hands-on experience practicing public health locally, internationally and in between. For many, these internships provide the first opportunity to apply classroom lessons and to weigh potential public health career paths. On the pages that follow, eight such students recount their recent summer training and how it has influenced their post-graduation plans.
PANCREATIC CANCER IS TREATABLE when detected early, but since symptoms rarely occur until the disease has spread to other organs, the vast majority of cases are diagnosed in the later stages, making it among the most lethal tumors. According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate following a pancreatic cancer diagnosis is 9 percent. It is the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.
THE U.S. SPENDS MORE THAN $10,000 PER PERSON on health care per year, approximately twice as much as the average spent by comparable high-income countries. There is ample evidence we aren’t getting our money’s worth. The rate of amenable mortality — premature deaths that could have been avoided with effective and timely health care — is higher in the U.S. than in any comparable high-income country, and more than 50 percent higher than in France, Australia, Japan and Sweden.