Italy and South Korea have two distinctly different healthcare systems, causing them to respond to public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic in markedly different ways. Differences exist in medical education for both countries, allowing South Korean medical graduates to have a more holistic education in comparison to their Italian counterparts, who specialize in medical education earlier on. Additionally, there are fewer South Korean physicians per 1000 people in South Korea compared to Italian physicians per 1000 people in Italy. However, both countries have a national healthcare system with universal healthcare coverage. Despite this underlying similarity, the two countries addressed COVID-19 in nearly opposite manners. South Korea employed technology and the holistic education of its physician community, despite having a smaller proportion of physicians in society, to its advantage by implementing efficacious drive-through centers that test suspected individuals rapidly and with little to no contact with healthcare staff, decreasing the possibility of transmission of COVID-19. Conversely, Italy is presently considered the epicenter of the outbreak in Europe and has recorded the highest death toll of any country outside of mainland China. This is partially due to the reactionary nature of Italy’s public health measures compared to South Korea’s proactive response. The different healthcare responses of South Korea and Italy can inform decisions made by public health bodies in other countries, especially in countries across the Americas, which can selectively adopt policies that have worked in curtailing the spread of COVID-19 and learn from mistakes made by both countries.
Feminine hygiene products such as tampons, pads, and sanitary tissues are crucial to a menstruating person’s health. Feminine hygiene products are a multi-billion-dollar industry, and over the course of a menstruator’s life, they spend between roughly $3000-$5000 on over 16,000 feminine hygiene products. Many financial barriers exist that prevent menstruators, most of whom self-identify as women, from accessing safe and healthy menstrual hygiene products. A disproportionately high number of women, especially women of color, live in poverty. As a result, purchasing feminine hygiene products often poses a substantial financial burden, sometimes preventing women from being able to buy feminine hygiene products at all or forcing them to choose between purchasing food or feminine hygiene products. This phenomenon is referred to as “period poverty.” Due to a lack of access to appropriate menstrual products, many women report substituting debris items, which lead to severe health complications such as toxic shock syndrome and cervical cancer. In addition to potential health risks, there are often negative social consequences associated with menstruation as many women report having to leave their workplace or school due to experiencing an emergency menstruation event and not finding feminine hygiene products publicly available. A plethora of slang words and negative cultural connotations are frequently associated with menstruation, and many women report feelings of stress and anxiety due to the many facets of menstruation symptom management and resource allocation. New York City made feminine hygiene products free in public schools, prisons, and homeless shelters, providing 323,000 menstruators with free products at a cost of roughly $5.88 per person per year, which is cost-effective. Nations such as Kenya, Australia, New Zealand, and Scotland have also led initiatives highlighting the cost-effective public health benefit of improving access to menstrual hygiene products.
Trauma centers in the United States focus on providing care to patients who have suffered injuries and may require critical care. These trauma centers are classified into five different levels: Level I to Level V. Level V trauma centers are the least comprehensive, providing minimal 24-hour care and resuscitation, and Level I trauma centers are the most comprehensive, accepting the most severely injured patients and always delivering care through the use of an attending surgeon. However, there is a major inequity in access to trauma centers across the United States, especially amongst rural residents. Level III to Level V trauma centers tend to be dominantly situated in rural and underserved areas. Furthermore, trauma centers tend to be widely dispersed with respect to rural areas. Therefore, these areas tend to have a greater mortality rate in relation to traumatic injuries. Improvements in access to high-tier traumatic care must occur in order to reduce mortality due to traumatic injuries in underserved rural areas. Possible improvements to rural trauma care include bolstering the quality of care in Level III trauma centers, increasing Level II center efficiency through the involvement of orthopedic traumatologists, placing medical helicopter bases in more strategic locations that enable transport teams to reach other trauma centers faster, building more Level I and Level II trauma centers, and converting Level III centers into either Level I or Level II centers.
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