Maddie Levine-Wolf
Appearances
Health Chatter
100th Episode Special
So a few things I wanted to reflect on. I came into the team a little bit later than everybody else. I mean, obviously, Barry's latest addition. So at least I'm middle of the pack now. But I just felt so welcomed and immediately respected for my expertise in marketing and communications. And I just feel like we all collaborate really well together.
Health Chatter
100th Episode Special
We all have our own things that we are maybe experts on or maybe know more about others. And one thing I've really valued about our hosts, Stan and Clarence, is they've always made me feel like an expert in my own right. And they've always valued my opinions. And I think that being a younger person and just getting out of you know, your degree in education, it can be a little scary.
Health Chatter
100th Episode Special
It can be a little bit hard to get started. And I think all value of these connections, the networking, the advice, some of even just our chats before and after each podcast episode. It's really a great group of people. I love doing the holiday parties together and stuff. Truly, we have a lot of shared values, but we also have a lot of differing opinions. So it's really beautiful to
Health Chatter
100th Episode Special
be respected for the differing opinions and even being so young and you guys have so much experience. So it's really, it's really a beautiful place to have open dialogue conversation about things that are hard to talk about and be okay. It feels okay to make mistakes in these conversations and learn from each other. And I think you don't get that too many other places other than
Health Chatter
100th Episode Special
educational settings where it's okay to make some mistakes. Once you get out into the real world, it's a little bit more scary to make mistakes. So I really, really value this platform. I think podcasting has always been an interest to me. And now knowing some of the
Health Chatter
100th Episode Special
ins and outs and the deeper workings of it i have an even deeper respect for people that do podcasts um and i and i really really value how much time effort and attention goes into putting out each individual episode and how much it takes to run a podcast as a whole so i think that's me reflecting on where we've been and then where we're going Public health is endless. It is timeless.
Health Chatter
100th Episode Special
I can't see us running out of ideas. We talk about that a lot, that we'll never run out of ideas. I can see us revisiting different topics over and over again. I can see certain things coming up around election cycles and certain things kind of fading into the background.
Health Chatter
100th Episode Special
And I'm kind of just excited to even see what comes up in the next year, two years, however long we continue this, just to see where things go. And even to start taking a bigger lens on things. I know we've focused a lot on Minnesota, a lot locally, a lot on the US, but even we can start looking at things globally. And I'm just really excited to see where we go.
Health Chatter
Illusion of Immortality
Yeah, something that I think about when I think about him, because I feel like I'm always seeing his videos, like how-to videos on YouTube is while he's on this quest to either extend his life or live forever, what is his quality of life during all of these things? If you're taking 111 pills a day, if you're
Health Chatter
Illusion of Immortality
you know, if you have to step into these devices and do certain exercise, like, are you, like, I guess to him that's living, but to me, that's like, when do you have time to enjoy what life has to offer? Like you've spent your whole time living, trying to extend your life. Like, so I just, yeah, I feel like I just constantly thinking about that too.
Health Chatter
Illusion of Immortality
Yeah, sorry. We can cut that out. Yeah, I don't think I can top... It's hard to give... an answer or final thoughts that are like tied up in a perfect bow because it's such a grand question and topic. But yeah, I think what everyone said, Deandre and Sheridan was really eloquently spoken.
Health Chatter
Illusion of Immortality
And I just think for me, I'm trying to, while I get older and realize that life is short and time is precious, just trying to be present every day and enjoy life. you know, positive and positive things and challenging things and just look for opportunities to lean into everything that life has to offer.
Health Chatter
Illusion of Immortality
So that's what I'll say as I continue to kind of wrestle with questions of mortality and immortality myself. But yeah, just being, just being present and focusing on, on each and every day.
Health Chatter
Infectious Disease
Clarence. I want to tell you, Dr. Michael, how much I appreciate your opening comments, first of all. And I really wish I would have been able to, I wish I would have read your 2017 book as we were going through this.
Health Chatter
Infectious Disease
Yeah. So let me do a follow-up question with you. With all the things that you said, how do we create trusted sources? Because I think that there are so many different things that are happening. Where do you go? What tips do you have for us as a community to create more trusted sources?
Health Chatter
Infectious Disease
I agree with you that barbers are, and barbers and beauticians are really effective in certain communities. I always talk about barbers are, is the one group of people that allow a man to touch him intimately in public. Yeah. And they'll tell... They'll tell things that they won't tell their partners. You know what I mean? So I agree with you.
Health Chatter
Infectious Disease
And if you know that and you know how to work with that, then you're able to really make a difference in terms of, as you just talked about, the trusted messengers. So, yeah, I agree with you. And thank you for doing that shout-out to Barbers.
Health Chatter
Infectious Disease
This has been phenomenal. It's been a pleasure to finally put a name and a face together. And definitely as a health leader, you definitely are setting the standard. At least for me as a community member, I love hearing from people like you who can break down these complicated issues in, in, in a, in a simple, understandable, and also doable way.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
Anybody that knows me knows I'm a very conservative person, right? You know me. But one of the things that I have learned in this life is that I am more concerned about your character and how you interact with me and how you treat me. And I'm going to treat you as a human being. That's one of the reasons why, again, I go back to the whole idea around humanity.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
But I think that part of what I like about this conversation is that we can have this conversation and still treat each other with respect. And many times when we have these kinds of conversations, we like to bunch up, you know, and say, well, this is our side, that's your side. And so I just want to tell the group that I appreciate you for that and that I'm enjoying this conversation.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
And I think that it's important to identify yourself and some of your values and what you believe in. And people have to be willing as another human being to respect that and to be able to walk away and still be able to communicate with each other.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
Let me say this again. This is what makes this group so powerful is the fact that we respect each other. Regardless of where we're at on the scale, whatever the spectrum is. We've come to a point where we can intersect, we can talk about things, and we're working to make our communities healthier.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
And part of a healthy community is being able to talk openly and freely about things, whether we agree or not. about things and still walk away realizing that we're dealing as human beings with each other.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
And so I just want to say this again is that I love this kind of conversation because it's freeing, it's freeing, and it's an awareness and it's opening us up to have even more and deeper conversations.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
I think people are always trying to figure out a way to identify or else separate themselves from others. And if you're a type of person that wants to feel special, then you'll find ways to make that happen. I personally, in my personal life, try so very hard never to do that, not to do that. I'm not perfect by any means. I just want to know who you really, really are. I tell people that.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
I just want to know who you really, really are. Tell me what you really, really think. For me, that's important because what I want to do, especially in the work that I'm doing around health, all of us need this. It's so important to be able to have an honest conversation so that you don't have to guess about stuff. Even with people that are of different
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
ideas whatever that whatever those differences are i'm still trying to figure out ways to make it happen now that's that might be cool by ish you know whatever but that's just the way i want to live in in that in that kind of way so uh to me again i know who i am and um I know that other people don't believe or think or act like I do, but that's okay. They're still worthy of being respected.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
Let me jump in real quick. While Matthew was talking, I'm in the car, and so the record came on that says Loser. And as he was talking, I was thinking about the fact that if we had a worldwide chill out day, some people would fight against it because they would consider us losers because we're looking and searching for some type of peace.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
You know, and for me, for me, one of the things that that I seek in my life is I don't do drama. I don't do drama very well because I don't see drama. And I think that, you know, when you when you get to a point where you can you can you can ask a person to seek seek who they who they really are.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
Give them, respect them for whatever, wherever they're at, you know, and can be cordial and civil towards them. That's what I seek for. So when I think about this whole topic of labeling and, you know, and stereotypes, I try to find commonality. You know, you don't have to be my friend, but maybe can we be allies is another thing that I use. And so that would be my last comment.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
I just, I really do honestly appreciate every comment that was made here. It was open and we were vulnerable and we had a chance to say what we had to say.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
Well, one of the things I want to share with you is that we are, as you know, we're part of a human. And there's a reason for that, because regardless of our identity,
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
ethnicity or where we come from we are we are all still human and i will all have you but one of the things that i think that's so important really is that we really especially in america we really can't help uh having these biases because we're inundated by them all the time the media Stereotypes. Those are the kinds of things that we are often we're exposed to.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
And so, you know, when I deal with people and, you know, people come in and they say, well, I love everybody. I'm saying, you know, you need to check that out because I think that we all struggle. We all struggle.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
And so I think the, you know, as Mary said, we have to identify those kinds of things and be okay with saying that we struggle with them without feeling like we have to, uh, you know, lose our soul in the process.
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
But one of the things, again, um, you know, as a community member, I'm often, uh, I often am challenged by this whole conversation that, that we have, uh, about this topic because, you know, people like to, um,
Health Chatter
Stereotypes & Labels
deny or people like to pretend and I think that that's so unhealthy not only for yourself but also for the people that you're dealing with and so I think this whole idea about what we're talking about is going to be important you know in terms of this conversation so that's that's my initial conversation yeah you know um I can relate a um a quick story I remember back in the in the um in the 80s when um
Health Chatter
Stress
Um, yeah that's a good question I think for me I think I'm always thinking about what we were kind of talking about earlier the difference between stress and anxiety because for me I think oftentimes those two things are very conflated um and I personally have a hard time um like separating the two.
Health Chatter
Stress
I think I'm constantly like in therapy, I'm constantly using like stress and anxiety interchangeably. And so I feel like knowing that there is a difference is important. I think for me, I didn't actually realize that I had anxiety until like COVID started. I think some of that is based on my childhood and how I saw anxiety manifesting in one way.
Health Chatter
Stress
I thought that that was the only way that anxiety manifested. And I was like, oh, that's not what I'm experiencing. So I must not be anxious. And then I remember once COVID started happening, my anxiety was manifesting in these like nightly panic attacks. And I was like, oh, maybe I am anxious. And so I got into therapy.
Health Chatter
Stress
Ultimately I started taking Lexapro and my anxiety and stress has, I've been able to manage it a lot better. But yeah, I mean, I also think it's interesting thinking about, and Brandon, maybe you can speak to this a little bit, is that like, I feel like right now we live in such a high stress environment. There's so much going on in the world that causes stress and anxiety.
Health Chatter
Stress
But I also have to imagine that like, people had the same levels of high stress and high anxiety like 100 years ago. So is it that like our world or in our life is getting more stressful and anxiety producing? Or is it more of like you were saying with kids these days about how sources of stress and anxiety are just shifting?
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
Yeah, so I'm also Jewish. So a lot of what Barry said is also how my family mourns and grieves, especially in the immediate aftermath of death. And I always found the Shiva tradition relatively uplifting. I feel like at least in my family or my extended family, the sitting Shiva period was always more of like a celebration of life. which I feel like is really lovely.
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
And then also on a personal note, I started working with a rabbi several months ago, about a year ago, just to kind of like learn more about my own understanding of Judaism and dive into kind of like my own spirituality. And one of the things we're really focused on is
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
unpacking kind of like mourning and death and mortality within Judaism so um you know that's obviously relevant to this episode so just continuing to kind of learn like how Judaism really looks at life um and the the rituals after death and um and you know all all that kind of stuff so um you know this is kind of just propelling that conversation in my mind.
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
i've just always thought that's kind of funny that we sit there and say beautiful things but the person doesn't get to hear them um so i've actually sorry i was just gonna say really good i've actually seen that in movies sheridan and it is kind of like i think for what we culturally do around death and loss i think it is somewhat of like a radical idea but i definitely i i
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
I hear you, and I think, yeah, that's something I've thought about too. That's a really interesting idea, so I support you. Thank you.
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
maddie any any thoughts on the verbal aspects or the symbolic aspects that we all kind of deal with any any ideas on that i think that um the verbal is always difficult i mean i i feel like um i even though i've experienced loss myself and i it's it's always just hard to know what the right thing to say is um
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
even if, you know, it's not your first time supporting someone in their own loss, um, because you never know what, yeah, you never know what the right thing to say is. Um, you never want to say something that, you know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry if your loss is kind of like a standard, um, and you never want it to sound like inauthentic because it's said so often.
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
And, you know, um, so I think for me, it's just a matter of like, um, telling the person, friend, family member that I'm here for them if they need anything. But it can be really difficult because like we already talked about, you know, everyone kind of processes and mourns and grieves in a different way. So yeah, I just, I think it's, it's challenging.
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
And if anyone else like knows the right thing to say, please tell me, but I feel like it's, you know, it's, it's, it's sad and it's difficult. And yeah, I feel like there's no, there's no one perfect thing that's going to make it better.
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
It's not a big deal. I don't have that much. I don't have articulate concluding thoughts. So I just wanted to leave it with everyone else's concluding thoughts.
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
Yeah, so I, I lost both of my maternal grandparents, my grandmother about 15 years ago now, and my grandfather about five years ago, I've also lost a few family pets, which is definitely a different, still a deep grief, but, you know, different. In terms of my grandparents, I think one of the things that I'm constantly thinking about in terms of
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
mourning a death and grieving a loss is how to process my own grief and also hold space for my family members processing their grief too. So for example, you know, my maternal grandparents, obviously my mom lost both of her parents. When my grandmother died, my mom was in her forties, which is really young to lose a parent. And obviously that's been
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
a huge loss and my mom thinks about it every day. And so how do I process the loss of my own, of my own grandparents while also, you know, being there to support my mom and her everlasting grief. So, um, there's a lot of grief to hold and a lot of different capacities. So that's something that I'm kind of always navigating too. Um, so yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's like Barry said, it never stops.
Health Chatter
Burials, Funerals, & Health
And it's interesting. Everyone's process is different. But I'm looking forward to kind of diving in and talking more about different traditions around rituals and burials. So, yeah.
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
Yeah, I just would echo what Clarence and Barry said about like the pros for traveling, quote unquote. For me, it's just, again, getting outside of my one usual routine, but also connecting with new cultures and having new and different experiences from my usual ones. I think that
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
ability to step outside of your comfort zone is really important um and yeah i mean i think it's just such a good opportunity to see the world and like barry and clarence said to expand your worldview um and in in that i really don't see a negative obviously um sometimes with logistics and health concerns or whatever it may be.
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
Obviously there are cons, I guess you could say, but for me, I think in my tax bracket at the moment, the only difficulty is like affording to travel. That's something that I'm constantly thinking about. So that is definitely a challenge for me right now, but yeah,
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
You know, there are ways there are ways where you can travel that is more affordable than, you know, a two thousand dollar plane ticket somewhere. So I think sometimes when we think about travel, we think of like going around the world or something when really like. I just went to Starved Rock, which is a state park in Illinois, a couple weekends ago.
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
We drove an hour and a half outside the city of Chicago. And it was beautiful, you know. So, I mean, that's not the same as going to Paris, obviously. But, you know, you don't necessarily have to break the bank just to get outside your comfort zone and things like that. So, yeah, those are some of my thoughts.
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
Not really. I mean, just underscoring what everyone else has said. I have a trip to Europe coming up in like six weeks. So these are great tips and great things to think about. So the timing is, is good for me. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, to me, I've always just grown up with... I feel like wanting to travel is a value in some ways. It doesn't interest everyone, and that's totally okay.
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
I think for me, my parents always instilled in us that traveling... is a really important way to, like we were saying earlier, to expand your worldview so you're not stuck in your own, you know, echo chamber of thoughts and experiences and perspectives. So I think that that's something that motivates me to continue traveling either, you know, relatively locally or to a totally different culture.
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
Yeah. And I have to believe that there is some type of traveling for everyone. You know, some people prefer national parks and connecting with nature. Some people prefer, you know, the Fifth Avenue trip to New York. Some people prefer going international. Some people prefer a little bit of a a little bit of everything, but I, I think there's so many different options.
Health Chatter
Traveling & Health
Travel can mean so many different things that, you know, I think there is a piece of it that, that couldn't, could resonate with any type of person.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
Yeah. I mean, I think... Sorry, Stan, just to jump in. I think that's really interesting, Clarence. And I think you're totally right that... there's a lack of critical thinking right now.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
And at the same time, it's like, well, if we're presented with news and information in a way that doesn't encourage critical thinking, it's not, you know, it's like, I don't necessarily blame people for not thinking past what they're presented with when like, that's the intention behind how it's presented. You know, like the way we get information doesn't really foster critical thinking.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
So why, unless you're innately curious, which I hope everyone is, even though we know they're not like, why would you question what you're confronted with when it is presented in a way that's like, this is the truth.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
That's so interesting because I didn't even think that many people still use Facebook. I mean, I do, but I'm weird in my millennial generation. I feel like most of my friends, if they have Facebook, they haven't opened it in months. So that's really surprising.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
That's the, I was just going to say, Stan, that's the other thing is that I feel like in social media, the way it's presented too is like,
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
it's like all you need to see is the title of the article and you are you know it hardens whatever you believe or the headline is contrary to what you think and so you scroll right past it you know what i mean like it's so i'm guilty of this too it's so easy just based on the headline to be like to you know that's all that you engage that's the
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
That's your only engagement with that source of information, you know, is just from the headline. And that tells you everything you need to know.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
um yeah that's an interesting question i i so one of the other things is that i don't like i don't have cable in my apartment and so i'm not you know i feel like when i'm at home with my parents they you know oftentimes will have like the nightly news on the morning news on just kind of like playing i don't have that because i don't have cable so i do
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
going back to the statistic that you mentioned earlier, I do get like 90% of my information from my phone, whether it's like Facebook news or Apple news, um, my friends and my family members are also oftentimes like sharing articles with each other. But I think the conversation around like how much to engage, like engaging with it is really interesting.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
I remember I used to listen to a New York Times podcast every morning for like a year. And it was basically just 30 minutes every day of just like the highlights of what, you know, went on the day before or what's just like going on in the world. And I remember after a couple months, I was like, I have to stop listening to this. Like, it's actually getting to the point where it's like,
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
so much of our news is just like depressing. And it was just like starting off my day and kind of just like a dark way. And so I was like, I need to stop engaging with this. And it's hard because I want to be informed and I want to be engaged. But when a lot of the news is just like heavy and dark and difficult, it makes you want to do the opposite. So, you know, it takes time.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
a lot of effort and an active effort to engage with, I feel like any source of news, whether that's like watching the news on like cable TV, whether that's like reading, scrolling through articles on your phone, like so much of the news is just heavy and it's makes it really difficult to want to stay informed. Um,
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
Even if I'm seeking out sources of information that are within my comfort zone, it's still difficult. And then you add on the extra effort that it sometimes takes to, like you were saying earlier, Clarence, to potentially engage with a source of news that pushes you outside of your comfort zone. So it just takes a lot of effort.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
So I, you know, in a sense, I don't blame people for being like, you know what, then therefore I'm just not going to engage with news or information at all. But that's also problematic. So it's, you know, it's, it's, it's difficult. And I feel like that's constantly on my mind of like, there's a balance between engaging an appropriate amount where it doesn't stress me out.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
And then the threshold is, of like pushing past that, of being like, now I'm stressed out and anxious and sad and demoralized and all those things. So it's a daily struggle for sure, which is taxing.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
and that's yeah and that's also not even like That's on the front end, right? And so then you have to deal with on the back end of like processing all of that on your own, right? And that is also takes a lot of time and effort. And so, you know, again, like I don't blame people who are like, I don't have time for all that, right?
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
Like I have to work and like put food on the table and pay my bills. Like I don't have time to engage with this like crazy culture of information. So again, which I don't think is right because like, You know, we live in a democracy. Well, some people would say we don't, but we do. And, you know, it's important that people are informed in order to vote in certain ways.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
So I don't think it's the right path to say, like, well, this is too stressful. I'm not going to engage. But I I get that in a lot of ways. It is it is hard. So.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
I also wonder, like, when you were growing up, was everything as highly politicized as it is now? Because I also think there's an element of, like, everything, all the information we're presented with, like... it's all feeding someone's political agenda, which makes it really difficult because people like the, the,
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
the idea of truth is even questioned right like there's like actual scientific evidence and data that is that some people think is fake right and so it's like every piece of information is put out there to again feed a political agenda which makes it really really difficult to know like what the truth is because it's not just presented as like the sheer truth it's presented within a
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
political agenda which is just so complicated yeah i wonder if it's like was that different you know 30 years ago or whatever it was 40 years ago you know i i think there were agendas but i don't think
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's about finding your own balance of, you know, engaging until a point where it's too much. I think, yeah, I think it's, I think it's really hard and I kind of don't know what the solution is, assuming that this kind of, this, this, culture of our news cycle isn't going anywhere. But, you know, resources, support systems, taking a break. Yeah.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
Just kind of assessing what feels good to you, but stay engaged. I think that's important in whatever way. I don't think it's, I don't think it's right to just not engage at all. So finding that balance, like you said.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of factors at play. I think the first thing that comes to mind is just our kind of, like,
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
information overload as a culture there's so much there's so much information that we get on a daily basis there's so many sources of information that we're exposed to on a daily basis there's you know there's cable news there's news over the internet there's news over like social media platforms so there's just like
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
And every source of information has their own, like, in my mind, personal agenda behind what they're putting out there. And so I think just naturally the more sources of information you have, the more variety of information there's going to be. Yeah. And so I think, you know, on the one hand, it's good to have a variety of sources of information.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
But on the other hand, at what point is it like too many different sources of information? I also think kind of what Clarence was mentioning earlier about people. kind of seeking out the information they want. I feel like there's a lot of confirmation bias going on about how people are consuming information.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
So a lot of times, especially because we live in such a hyper political society, I feel like folks seek out information sources of information that are going to confirm their existing beliefs. And like Clarence said, like people don't want to be uncomfortable and they don't want to step outside of their comfort zones in terms of their perspectives.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
And so a lot of times it's just like, you know, and I'm guilty of this too. Like I watch CNN and more like liberally affiliated sources of news and information because that's more comfortable to me. Like I could watch For me, Fox News, which is like a source of a lot of.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
Misinformation or another more like conservatively leaning broadcast or news channel, but like I'm only doing that for entertainment purposes, I'm probably not going to really let myself. hear what they're saying, because that challenges my own belief. So I feel like we're all guilty of it. But I think it's just it's a combination of so many different things.
Health Chatter
Fake News and Health
It's hard to say what, you know, it's hard to say it's due to this one factor.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
I can pop in quick and then Maddie, if you want to pop in too. I did the research for this episode, so I definitely have a lot more understanding about safety than I did previously. I think as a society in the U.S.,
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
compared to other places we are um not as risk averse as maybe other countries um other places that pay that have public health care um it is of their financial interest to make sure that you're safe and healthy um so they don't want to pay for you to have an accident later down the road so i think us all being responsible for our own health insurance pushes the onus onto individuals in the US.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
And that's something that we do with a lot of things is our individualistic society in general. It always falls on the individual. And I also think that safety, it really depends upon the family, the person, the household that you're talking about. Everybody has different jobs, different natures of jobs.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
Making a home safe for a 90-year-old is going to be different than making a home safe for a three-year-old. And so it really depends on what age group we're talking about and even like cultural things really play into this too. So I think, I think it really depends on where you are in the world, who you are and what you want to keep safe.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
Yeah, I definitely agree with you, Barry. The cars themselves, it's really impressive how much the lengths to which they are going for safety now. And it probably does make sense to have a course to even learn about all of these new features. But the roads themselves, not the cars. It's in the research if somebody has it pulled up.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
But I think since like 2020, 2021, obviously people were not on the road as much in 2020, but following the pandemic, it actually, the roads have gotten more dangerous in terms of people speeding, not following proper normal safety protocols, like using your blinker. And I don't currently drive right now. I don't have a car. I do drive for work university vehicles. And it,
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
Being a pedestrian, I feel exposed in a lot of ways. I've been hit by a car twice this year alone. And that's just in intersections where people should be stopping and looking, but they're not. I have the right of way and they still give me love taps. I also bike a lot and I've been hit by a car biking too.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
And so me as somebody that's making the decision to travel in a more eco-friendly way that is better for my health and my community's health, I'm actually just risking my life in a lot of ways.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
And we need to have better systems in place so that people can travel whatever way makes sense to them safely, whether that be public transit, making public transit more safe, even pedestrians, bikers, all of the above, cars, all of it.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
I love that, Maddie. That was so good. I think I echo to surround yourself by people that make you feel safe and agree with you in terms of safety. I think as an individual, you can go through life every day, every setting that you're in, whether you're at work, at home, on the road.
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
and be mindful and have awareness it's really easy to accidentally shut our brains off and go through life on autopilot but that's when mistakes are made so really being mindful about everything that you're doing in terms of your own safety but if you're worried about your safety you can also make other people's lives safer by being a safer driver by following proper protocols in apartments and housing and
Health Chatter
Health & Safety
Making sure your family is safe will also keep you safe in turn. So caring about these things and being mindful is the number one way to go through your life with safety at the forefront of your mind.