What have been the most significant changes in health and human services over the past fifty years?

Question

What have been the most significant changes in health and human services over the past fifty years?

Answer 1

I'd say diet and customer service/ hospitality.

Answer 2

The prevention of polio

The eradication of smallpox...

I remember going to get the polio shot, and how grateful my mom was at the time.  She grew up in fear every summer, not allowed to go to county fairs or swimming pools for fear of polio.

People forget it wasn't so long ago that kids used to die by the fistful from measles and polio.

The other significant developments have been the dawn of "critical care" or intensive care units (people just used to die, there weren't really any ventilators or stuff...remember the iron lung was not too long ago) and also the development of heart-lung bypass that enabled us to have open heart surgery and also transplant medicine.

It is truly a world that was unimagineable fifty years ago.

The other changes have sucked....like HMOs, tort explosion, RBVs, and "for profit" insurance companies traded on wall street.