Public Health

Social Media Is a Public Health Crisis. Let’s Treat It Like One

Jasmina Kasimova

 Lee, Helen Bouygues. “Social Media Is a Public Health Crisis. Let’s Treat It Like One”. 20 July, 2021

          In this digital newspaper, founder and president of the Reboot Foundation, which develops tools and resources to help people cultivate critical thinking, media literacy and reflective thought discusses the red flags of social media. In the newspaper it states, “ need to start treating these platforms like we do cigarettes and alcohol. That means implementing warning labels and age restrictions, and conducting better research into the health effects of long-term usage.” Social media has become an addiction for society as serious as cigarettes and alcohol. In the newspaper it states, “ Social media’s threat to our national mental health is at least as dangerous as anti-vaccine disinformation”. Social media is really bad for mental health and spreads misleading information. It also states, “Our research has shown that some 40% of social media users would give up their pet or car before they’d give up their accounts. And shockingly, more than 70% said they would not permanently scrap their social media for anything less than $10,000.” It is imprudent for people to place greater value on a digital platform than on physical possessions like their car, pet, or money. Social Media has become a serious issue in society. 

“How the war on drugs impacts social determinants of health beyond the criminal legal system.” by Aliza Cohen et al.

Sami Ahmad

Cohen, A., Vakharia, S. P., Netherland, J., & Frederique, K. (2022, December). How the war on drugs impacts social determinants of health

beyond the criminal legal system. Annals of medicine. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9302017/

The article explores the consequences of the war on drugs on social determinants of health beyond the criminal legal system. The authors argue

that the war on drugs has led to significant disparities in health outcomes for marginalized communities, including decreased access to

healthcare, increased rates of chronic illness, and higher rates of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis. The authors discuss how the war

on drugs has resulted in stigmatization and discrimination towards individuals who use drugs, exacerbating existing health disparities. The

authors also highlight how the war on drugs has contributed to the racialization of drug use and the criminalization of poverty, further

marginalizing communities of color. The article concludes by calling for a shift towards a public health approach to drug use and a recognition

of the role of structural inequality in shaping health outcomes.

  1. “A drug war logic that prioritises and justifies drug prohibition, criminalisation, and punishment has fuelled the expansion of drug surveillance and control mechanisms in numerous facets of everyday life in the United States negatively impacting key social determinants of health, including housing, education, income, and employment”, (Cohen et al, 2022).
  2. “One underexplored upstream SDOH is the “war on drugs” in the United States and how it exacerbates many of the factors that negatively impact health and wellbeing, disproportionately affecting low-income communities and people of colour who already experience structural challenges including discrimination, disinvestment, and racism”(Cohen et al, 2022).