Professional mission statement: Use my leadership skills to advance health equity and inspire change in communities.
Top four areas of interest in public health:
- Myofunctional therapy for all ages
- This became an area of interest to me because of my dental background, I became aware of the negative effects of poor facial structures, jaw issues, airways issues, and nasal issues. Myofunctional therapy focuses on retraining the muscles to obtain a normal resting posture of the tongue, lips, and jaws to expand the palate and open the airway. The goal is facilitation of proper nasal and diaphragm breathing. This can start as young as babies to see if they have been born with a tongue tie or lip tie and adolescents to see if they grind their teeth at night or snore. Many adolescents are incorrectly diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, when they have an underlying condition of an airway issue that myofunctional therapy can treat. This is important to me because incorrectly diagnosed, or undiagnosed, airway issues can lead to many health problems that are prescribed with medications that are just a bandaid to a larger problem. Many of us need to learn how to correctly breathe again so that we can stay healthy.
- Emergency Preparedness and Response
- Emergencies can create a variety of hazards for workers in the impacted area. Preparing before an emergency incident plays a vital role in ensuring that employers and workers have the necessary equipment, know where to go, and know how to keep themselves safe when an emergency occurs. This area is of interest to me because I am successful at planning and organizing during crisis. I also have strong leadership skills that allow me to maintain focus of crowds during emergency situations. I am able to remain calm under pressure, I have excellent critical thinking and strategic planning skills, and I am able to make quick decisions as disasters change and develop.
- Importance of sleep for all ages
- The CDC recommends adults get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. Most American adults lack getting the minimum hours required, resulting in more American’s getting sick and missing out on work, increased risk of developing health issues like diabetes, coronary heart disease, or obesity, having a harder time focusing and being able to perform necessary tasks, and more likely to cause a car accident when driving tired. This area is of interest to me because finding a way to communicate with communities to express the importance of quality sleep and create campaigns to influence change is critical to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities.
- Environmental health
- This topic is of interest to me due to the climate changes that have been happening for years and are continuing to rapidly change. There are links between health conditions and the environment that we are aware of, but a lot that we are still learning about and unfolding every day. Research to determine relationships between environmental hazards and health are another subtopic that is interesting to me to learn about. The environment is constantly changing and learning about new findings to protect our communities health and wellbeing is of great interest to me in the public health field.
I plan to contribute to the public health field by improving health care equity for a diverse population. I will use my leadership skills to advocate for communities in need and work toward advancements in quality care. I will use my research and biostatistics knowledge to be able to perform evidence based studies to evolve communities.