Upstream and Downstream - another way to think of interconnection

(photo credit makelessnoise)

Here's another way of looking at interconnectedness. You can look at solutions to health problems in terms of upstream and downstream.

Downstream solutions can be affected by individuals. A smoker could quit smoking, for example. She could also switch away from menthol cigarettes, or decide to never smoke in the house or around children.  He could buy one of those fancy filters that sucks the smoke in so it doesn't drift around. She could smoke fewer cigarettes, or only in very specific places.

These are all choices that one person can make, or implement alone. Therefore, they are downstream solutions. Upstream solutions are too big for one person to implement all alone. They required a level of concerted action that can only be put into place by governments or major coalitions.

In the case of smoking, upstream solutions would include regulations against smoking in public places, limitations on cigarette advertising, and increasing taxes on cigarettes. Those interventions would substantially decrease smoking rates, and improve public health, and one person can't make then happen.

If you're going to successfully fight a global health problem, you need to look both upstream and downstream. In the case of tobacco, we need to encourage good individual choices, and set up a system that allows and encourages those choices.