What connection does public health have to the titan submarine 🤔? It shows the disconnection of our society and it is fascination with wealth over marginalized.
Check this out on the podcast, Health Equity Mondays #6 on Public Health Careers.
Titan Submarine TLDR
You probably have heard about the titan submarine by now. But if you didn’t let me give you a TLDR to catch you up.
- A five person “submarine” voyaged to explore the Titanic
- Four passengers paid $250,000 each for this voyage (yes, a total of a million dollars 👀)
- ​Two passengers were Billionaires, one was crew member, the other two were explorers
- The submarine started its descent to the Titanic around 8am EST Sunday June 18th
- At around 9:45am EST, communications is lost to the submarine and rescue officials are notified
- The submarine is scheduled to resurface at 3pm EST on Sunday June 18th. It does not and it is said to be lost
- Rescue missions were started and kept going through Thursday June 22nd
- The submarine had enough air to last until Thursday June 22nd
- Thursday June 22nd around 2pm EST, debris was found and later confirmed to be the submarine after implosion
- An estimated $6.5 million+ was spent by US, Canadian, and French Rescue efforts to no avail
Pakistani Refugee Ship
Now that we are all caught up. Did you hear about the 700+ Pakistani nationals that died earlier in June after their overcrowded ship capsized when they were actively and direly trying to escape war, persecution, and poverty?
I’m guessing you were less likely to hear about this. This highlights the growing importance of having public health people in this world. The double standard around our attention, coverage, and funding needs to end. Public health works to protect and empower these types of communities that have their voices unheard. The populations that are left to the margins and forgotten.
Could you imagine what $250,000 could have done for these 300 Pakistani’s? In Pakistan, a family of four could live for $1,000/month, excluding rent. These Refugees died because they did not have a choice and the media didn’t pay attention enough. It was either they suffer and die in Pakistan under the economic collapse or they die trying to escape to a better life. None of these men and women are to blame for the economic hardships that they lived in.
This is in contrast to the billionaires that spent life changing amounts of money to see the Titanic. Which I would argue is best seen through a movie. This was a CHOICE; an adventure these people wanted to go on.
Both these incidents are tragedies. It shows that this world is explicitly set up to serve the haves. Why didn’t the US, France, and Canada spend $6.5+ million to support refugee efforts? What if they worked with the Pakistani government to improve economic conditions (Meh, not too confident in world powers working altruistically for less developed nations 👀)
What money is allocated towards shows morally what is prioritized in society. This is true for the media that spent days covering the Titan submarine and much less so the refugee deaths. This is true for the money paid on rescue efforts for the top 1%, and the lack there of, for the bottom 1%. It is also true for:
- The US spends ~$3.6 trillion annually on health, less than 3% of this is directed towards public health and prevention​
- The slashing of public health funding in 2018 (and in the face of COVID 19)
- County and municipality budgets that spend more on police enforcement than social determinant needs
- Health systems underinvestment into systemic community health improvement efforts
What We Need
We, public health professionals, need to raise our voices. We have to further these conversations so that we as a society are more morally and financially focused on supporting those marginalized communities. The ones that aren’t spoken about, but hold the answers to our most pressing issues.
While death is sad and I wish it upon no one, how can we shift the narrative and power dynamics so that the marginalized groups are the ones we are trying to support and save the most.
Condolences to all those that lost loved ones. We as a society need to do better.
