International Public Health Policy Essay example -- Graduate Admission

International Public Health Policy    As a student of international public health, I intend to obtain an essential part of my instruction overseas. My formal education, with the potential to undermine more culturally appropriate knowledge and practices considering its decidedly Western perspective, is still incomplete. The Harvard Public Health Program will allow me the flexibility to learn Asian public health policy and programming, the benefit of which is undeniable. Asia has dealt admirably with the effects that rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions have had on health, particularly the emergence of chronic diseases that characterize industrialized nations side by side with infectious diseases that characterize still developing nations. All of this has been made even more complex by the emergence of new diseases such as AIDS. The decision to pursue public health was not a haphazard one, but the result of a thoroughly thought out estimation of my interests, concerns and capabilities. When I was seventeen, I wrote an essay for college that described my motivation and commitment to learning a subject well for a purpose. Sitting under covers in a small, poorly lit room, listening to my father swear at the walls during a cocaine high, I wanted to understand substance abuse and addiction. The purpose then was to "grow up and learn why people become addicted to things that hurt them, their bodies. . . and their children," and my intent was to use that information in my work as a substance abuse rehabilitation counselor. During my undergraduate years, I participated in numerous and rigorous courses related to my interest in substance abuse, one of which led to my involvement with a university-sponsored program called... ..., considering the World Health Organization's revised definition of health: "...a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease," and one that cannot be accomplished with too narrow a perspective. Similar to when I was seventeen, I am still learning for a purpose, having recognized that I will always feel the obligation to do so. Yet it is now with the blessing and encouragement of an international community with whom I attempt to bridge the growing inequity between our countries, actualizing that obligation through the transfer of the knowledge and experience that I am fortunate enough to receive. Most importantly, I wish to apply, on their terms, the theory, methodology, and technology that I have been taught, thereby fulfilling the responsibility that I have to use this knowledge in the most beneficial manner.