Community Action Award Winner: Cassandra Savino
Life in a cubicle is beginning to be slightly more exciting. I’ve attended a meeting where public health officials from around the Americas shared their research and methods of health information sharing. After the meeting, there was a small reception where I was able to network with health officials from Canada, Brazil, and Argentina, which is definitely a perk of being an intern in Washington, DC.
I’m constantly updating and writing blog posts for PAHO’s Equity List, which is a blog that updates subscribers regarding PAHO’s accomplishments, new scientific papers, and both global and region-specific public health information. I am also continuing to do research to write a grant proposal for the Rockefeller Foundation. We are asking for funds to figure out ways to provide universal and equal access to concise, accurate, and comprehensible health information. By focusing on new methods of reaching those with disabilities and by tackling the digital divide, PAHO/WHO hopes to contribute to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of Universal Health Coverage. While my boss was in Brazil for a week, the editors of PAHO’s Journal, The Pan American Journal of Public Health, asked that I help them in their peer review process (of course, this was in addition to the list of tasks my boss left for me). My job was to prepare manuscripts to be sent for peer review. As a biology major I was actually really excited to do this. I had to make sure that all of the manuscripts were blind before being peer reviewed and to filter out manuscripts that were submitted internally by PAHO or WHO affiliates. This also meant that I had access to scientific papers that have never been published. I think I spent more time reading some of the submissions than actually preparing them, but who wouldn’t want to be one of the first to read the results of infectious disease studies? One of my coworkers and I are in the process of taking the Equity List to the next level on social media. As of now, subscribers of the Equity List are mostly associated with governmental and educational institutions. We are planning to bring the content of the Equity List’s blog to Facebook and possibly to Instagram in order to reach a wider and more diverse group of readers. As my boss is in Barbados this week for more work-related meetings, I am currently in charge of preparing #PAHOhistory tweets by searching PAHO archives for images and historically significant WHO and PAHO initiatives, awards, implementation of regional offices, etc. Next week, we will be taking a work field trip, visiting the Library of Congress and other major libraries of DC., so I am getting a good sense of history and the importance of information sharing. This internship is giving me an interesting insight on the behind-the-scenes work of public health. While some of the work I do feels unattached to the public health sector, I’m realizing that all of the information I’m helping to disseminate and the grants I am writing are directly influencing educators, doctors, and other professionals in the health sector that will in turn directly impact people on a community and global level.
