[letter from the editor]

Greetings HSPH Community!

In 2004, a college friend invited me to become one of the first Carls to join the small facebook community thriving online. Five years later, the world and your Mother are on facebook—a virtual society that boasts of more than 250 million people. And now, in this same digital world, we can even follow Presidential thoughts by the minute through twitter, and are loaded with more online news than you could shake a DAG at. Oh, and let’s not forget good ol’ youtube—watching your favorite comedian at two in the morning could not be made easier. Regardless of where you are on the planet, the internet is simply changing the way we communicate, socialize, see, hear, and think.

It’s literally the world at your fingertips.

As I was reflecting on my first year here at HSPH, amid the hustle and bustle of graduate life, I had the suspicious feeling that something was glaringly missing in my experience. From discussions with my fellow classmates and friends, we came to realize that we were missing that good old fashion debate outside of class on whether Obama’s health care plan would really fly, or that conversation on what people think really went down during the Gates-Crowley exchange. We were missing the chance to share our experiences as students hopping across the globe—learning about health, promoting health, and living health. We were missing that critical dialogue with people outside of our inner circle—with whom we eat lunch and dinner with everyday, compare SAS code with for the same course, and with whom we share the same political views. So, I thought, why not take it to this so-called free “world at your fingertips?”

Hence, the eConnections blog was birthed. The Student Advisory Committee for the Health Communications Concentration (SAC-HCC) has developed this space to provide you—members of the HSPH community—a platform to voice perspectives on public health topics, experiences at HSPH, internships, opinions on public health news events and policy, and to creatively use media (through video, podcasts, photos, music, and digital art) to promote health. We believe promoting health communication is critical to progress in the health arena, and we believe this virtual exchange will be an essential part of the HSPH experience.

So here it is. Your spot in the digital world to voice your opinions. To be real. Honest. And upfront. With friends, allies, opponents, and strangers. If not now, when?

Amenah A. Babar, MPH

SD Student

Society, Human Development, and Health

Co-Editor in Chief