We took a picture at Lettuce Lake Park of a sign, which
states that it is against the law to ride a bike without a helmet under the age
of 16. This is an example of Public Health because the sign is being used to
prevent injuries and spreading awareness about bicycle safety. Public Health's
primary goal is to promote primary prevention in order for the population as a
whole to be overall healthy. With the help of signs like the ones at Lettuce
Lake Park, it helps decrease the amount of injuries due to bikes. Public Health
also uses laws that we have and implement them in order to promote safety. Our
goal as Public Health Activists is to make the general population aware of the
everyday concerns and help decrease trips to the hospital over things that could
have been prevented. With preventive methods, insurance costs and medical bills
are significantly lower, with the economy and how it is today, every dollar
counts. These signs which, many people ignore could help with decrease the
medical bills. Simple actions like wearing a helmet when bike riding lowers the risk of
potential injury, which could have been avoided in the first place. We as a
group, chose this location because it is available to the public and easy to
get access to the signs. Using a park, allows everybody in the community to be
able to see the sign and take preventative actions to avoid potential head
injuries due to an accident.
Christine, Alex, Nick, Christie, Cat
This is a really creative idea, I would have never thought about public health being present in a park. This is a great example of paternalism, where we are kind of ignoring personal rights in order to protect those that we think are to young to make their own wise decisions. 16 seems like a good age to be able to choose whether you want to wear a helmet or not. And we are also protecting younger people from the dangers of riding a bike without a helmet.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you all that helmet use is public health. Unintentional injury is the number one cause of death among youth, and state policies (like the helmet requirement) could help change this. Signs like this make the public aware of these policies and hopefully remind people of potential dangers. I think it is important to protect the health of the youth, who often see themselves as impervious to danger, by implementing these types of policies.
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