Richard Jackson Designing Healthy Communities

Designing Healthy Communities Summary

The episode of Designing Healthy Communities that I watched discussed the impact of the environment on communities and our health. It also discussed how our generation needs to preserve or better our environment for future generations, so that our future generations can enjoy what we have or better than what our generation had. Such as, the Onondaga Lake and the mercury that will be in there for many years to come. With all the mercury in the lake it is not healthy to drink the water or eat the fish but, with high hopes it will be some day. In addition, this episode Richard Jackson continues to discuss and illustrate that where someone lives in a community can affect their health. Especially in association

Jackson. Richard J. Jackson, MD, MPH, the host, narrator, and author of the Designing Healthy Communities is a professor and a chair of the Department of Environmental Sciences at the school of Public Health at the University of Las Angeles, CA. He also belongs to leadership programs with the California Department of Public Health. Richard Jackson has had many accomplishments in his life time these just being a couple of them: In California his work led to the establishment of California Birth Defects monitoring program and state and national laws that have reduced the risk of pesticides in farmworkers and children. While at the center of Disease Control and Prevention he established the national asthma epidemiology and control program. In an interview with a radio talk show Jackson was challenged by the host. The host stated that “You work for the government? You must be lazy or stupid or corrupt,” Jacksons response was “No, I am none of those. I am a physician, a pediatrician, and I picked the career of public health to make a difference, to embrace life’s challenges, not to control people’s lives, but to assure conditions where people can be healthy (Jackson & Sinclair, 2012).” I think this statement is a true testament of the character of Richard Jackson. I believe he wrote the textbook and created the series to show everyone what is happening around the US in our communities and how we can make our communities better places to live. Because change does not