{"id":20970,"date":"2025-04-30T13:37:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T17:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/?post_type=story&p=20970"},"modified":"2025-04-30T14:56:43","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T18:56:43","slug":"a-deeper-understanding-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/04\/30\/a-deeper-understanding-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A deeper understanding of the world\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Natasha Devlin \u201926 finds the pulse of public health<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Natasha Devlin \u201926, promoting public health is her passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The international development and social change<\/a> major felt those stirrings while interning in Namibia during the fall semester. Devlin helped create a Planned Parenthood Association website<\/a> to boost community engagement in the capital of Windhoek and the nearby township of Katutura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"two
In fall 2024, Natasha Devlin interned in Namibia and helped create a Planned Parenthood Association website. Courtesy photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLearning from others, learning what’s going right and what’s going wrong, and how you can help is so important,\u201d Devlin says. \u201cIt’s easy to think of health issues as something you can get treatment for when it happens to you \u2014 but, if you think about why it\u2019s happening, you can work to prevent those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devlin attended events where colleagues would offer HIV testing, family planning, birth control education, and more. They traveled in a mobile outreach truck to hard-to-reach communities, where they did school outreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before heading to Africa, Devlin interned for Massachusetts Rep. Marjorie Decker, chair of the Legislature\u2019s Joint Committee on Public Health, and for the town of Salem\u2019s Board of Health. Both opportunities allowed Devlin to observe how public entities approach community health and have made her more conscious of how she moves in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think a lot more critically about my actions now and how I’m traveling and viewing policymaking,\u201d Devlin says. \u201cI think it’s easy to look past issues and not think that hard about them, but I think what my experiences have taught me is to understand who made the policies, why that\u2019s important, who are they affecting, and to gain a deeper understanding of the world as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"student
Natasha Devlin \u201926. Photo by Natalie Hoang \u201925, MBA \u201926 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Devlin has been inspired by courses at Clark like AIDS to COVID: Ethics and Pandemics, taught by Professor Patrick Derr<\/a>, Culture, Health, and Development, taught by Professor Ellen Foley<\/a>, and Sociology of Medicine, taught by Professor Deborah Merrill<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClark has set me up to think critically about health,\u201d Devlin says. \u201cHealth in the U.S. is viewed so differently from how health is viewed in other cultures worldwide. I\u2019ve learned so much about how health and development intersect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devlin\u2019s honors thesis examines the intersection of climate change and sexual health in Namibia. In the future, she hopes to continue working internationally and plans to apply for the Peace Corps before pursuing a master\u2019s or Ph.D. in global health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m not the type of person who wants to just sit inside,\u201d Devlin says. \u201cI love getting into the community to talk to people. Throughout my internships, I met so many amazing people who gave me insights into public health. It’s so easy to only learn from a book or from a class, but having the perspective of a person who’s actually going through something, like getting an HIV test, and being able to understand their story is so important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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