553. The topography of wellness: how health and disease have shaped the American landscape (1:03:52)

Date:
2021-03-17
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
When it comes to matters of health, environment, and urban history, lessons of the past are often forgotten by Americans. However, in many ways, fears from American epidemics in the last 150 years have all become acute again with the COVID-19 pandemic. Working at the intersection of public health and urban/environmental history, architect Sara Jensen Carr investigates how shifts in the American urban landscape were driven by health concerns, and how these have led to this inflection point between living in the pandemic and a post-pandemic future. She's joined by urban and environmental planner Tim Beatley in this Medical Center Hour that addresses the "topography of wellness" in our urban public spaces even as we anticipate COVID-driven design changes. History of the Health Sciences Lecture Co-presented with Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library; Center for Design + Health, School of Architecture; and University of Virginia Press

557. The type 2 diabetes crisis, can history help us address it? (58:53)

Date:
2013-03-20
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
We hear almost daily about the rapidly increasing rate of type 2 diabetes in the U.S. population. Many pronouncements are dire, proclaiming an "epidemic," and most make it sound as though this problem is relatively new-just three or four decades old. Yet almost 100 years ago a small group of U.S. health care professionals was already warning that diabetes was "a public health problem," fated to become worse if nothing was done soon. But what did they mean by this? Why had they grown concerned? And what measures did they recommend to try and reverse the upward trend in diabetes rates? In this Medical Center Hour, historian Arleen Tuchman asks what we can learn from history that might help us understand better how we are framing the diabetes "crisis" today, and why. How do cultural assumptions about diabetes, and about the particular populations believed to be most at risk, influence not only our understanding of this disease but also our efforts to gain control over it? Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series