Rudy Owens’ Post

A week ago, the for-profit company Change Healthcare notified me, seven months after the fact (event in February 2024), that nearly all my health and personal data had been stolen in the massive data breach of its system. As you might recall, this breach crippled U.S. for-profit providers, and it was at first hidden from tens and tens of millions of impacted victims. The company paid over $20 million to the ransomware hackers who easily penetrated the system holding tens of millions of Americans private data that none of them voluntarily said could be used or provided to Change Healthcare. (See a recent story: https://lnkd.in/g4E76qKt, and see what HHS has published publicly about this massive data security failure: https://lnkd.in/gSX9FFA3.) The restitution listed in the letter is a joke, as nearly all corporate data breach promises for restitution are that I have received over many years. My compromised data includes, likely: my SSN, health records, billing and insurance data, and other personal data that it or providers it worked with collected from me or others to build a profile of me to likely sell to even other vendors. The massive failure is a stunning reminder of what’s wrong with the U.S. for-profit “health care” system. This company provides no value to anyone and only exists because our nation has long resisted meaningful health care reform similar to most developed nations. My trip to Finland helped remind me that this type of data security failure is actually a downstream result of larger failure to do what countries like Finland and nations with modern health systems do—provide nationalized health care. I’m including a photo I took at the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas in Tampere, highlighting how Finland created its system in 1972. You can also read my larger article I posted earlier this week: https://lnkd.in/gb_t76Mj.  My articles notes: “The 1972 Primary Health Care Act made municipalities responsible for organizing all health services. … They law brought all preventive and curative services, including the local hospitals that were run separately, under local and integrated municipal primary health care authorities.” This is also a very good white paper, sponsored by the Lancet Global Health Commission, on how primary health care  works in Finland: https://lnkd.in/gZh5qRaJ. I hope some public health and health policy “wonks” take time to add this to their reading list. And I hope the hackers did not steal or exploit private data to attack your personal finances. Until we get greater reform for actual national health care, we’ll have to accept more companies like Change Healthcare notifying us of what they had hacked.

REFLECTIONS HOW FINLAND INVESTS IN THE HEALTH OF ITS PEOPLE I have recently returned from my third trip to Suomi/Finland since August 2023. I relish my time in a country that is home to a quarter of my ancestors and where I can enjoy fabulous hosting by my newly found relatives. They still spoil me, this time at their coastal and lake cottages, with wonderful food, saunas, and joyful company. I also am lucky one of my relatives lives in Tampere, where I visited for three days and had a smashing time. On this trip, I continued to learn from the ways Finland invests in the health and wellness of its people. One of the clearest ways this is done is through its extensive infrastructure, everywhere, for public transportation and active movement, with ubiquitous bike and pedestrian trails in every community. My relatives joked how “obsessed”  I was documenting their city’s human-scaled local transportation system. (Visit Tampere and be amazed!) I also appreciated the wonderful displays examining the history of social welfare and public health at Tampere's fabulous Työväenmuseo Werstas, or Finnish Labour Museum Werstas. My essay includes some photos of the museum's displays highlighting landmark Finnish legislation, notably the Primary Health Care Act of 1972. There are clear reasons why Finland far outperforms the United States on basic human and public health measurements. I provide just a few metrics on the gaps. My hope is some of my U.S. followers working in health care, public health, and planning take the time to learn about the Finnish way of wellness and compassion, investigate the resources I have assembled, and then share this information with their peers. As my story notes, "societal investments produce results and do not happen by accident." I also welcome any critical feedback from those who live and work in the Nordic countries, who may wish to correct my observations. https://lnkd.in/gPVbx33M

Some big news hit today: "Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved and granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (2024-2025 formula) to include a monovalent (single) component that corresponds to the Omicron variant KP.2 strain of SARS-CoV-2." If you missed this news, I would understand, given the presidential contest, global conflicts and civil wars, wildfires, and a host of other issues that matter to millions of ordinary people in their daily lives. Oregon Health Authority (OHA) today also reported that "shots could be available in Oregon in the coming weeks." The vaccines could not come soon enough. OHA noted three days earlier, the rate of people testing positive for COVID climbed from 3.1 percent in April to more than 18 percent during the last week of July. Your best bet to prevent serious illness and protect yourself is to seek a vaccine when you are able to schedule your shot, if your health status allows.

SHARING STORIES OF FINNISH-AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS, SAUNAS, AND FAMILY LORE I am excited to share my latest episode of the “Finding Finland” podcast. My special guest is Gail Bilto, one of my biological relatives. Gail and I connected in person for the first time in the summer 2023, before I visited Finland for my first time. See the episode here: https://lnkd.in/gjbkC5f9. In 2023, she began sharing family stories with me about our Finnish ancestors we share, who settled in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the early 1900s, when waves of Finnish immigrants moved to the state, along with Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ontario. Her grandmother, who is also my great grandmother, mostly spoke Finnish her entire life in the United States in Michigan. The Finnish traditions in Hancock, Michigan, especially wood-burning saunas, survived well into the 1960s. We talked about those Finnish customs, the lives of Finnish-American immigrants and family members, and many other family stories. This is especially important to me, since state adoption officials and courts in Michigan hid my ethnic and family identify for decades because of outdated, harmful state laws that remain in place to this day. (It’s still illegal for me to know my family history in the state, even though I overcame these regressive secrecy measures after years of work—please see my book.) Mostly we had fun talking together for the first time, face to face, for this podcast. Kiitos paljon!

I feel deep, soulful satisfaction sharing the latest episode of my "Finding Finland" podcast. I sat down in June 2024 with Ronan Beckman, a historical fiction author with a focus on the “long Regency” and Late Georgian era. Like me, Beckman is a Michigan native and an adoptee. He has lived in the United Kingdom, with his family, for more than 30 years. Beckman learned growing up he had ancestry in Sweden, which ultimately led him to discovering his Swedish family history. Many of his relatives trace their roots to farming country in central Sweden, a place he visited in the early 2000s to meet his distant kin, which he recounts here. We fist connected several years ago about our shared and fascinating parallel lives as Detroit/Detroit area adoptees—the “Baltic Brotherhood”—with Nordic roots hidden by adoption secrecy laws that remain in force today. I was also amazed how he, like me, felt a strong, almost mythical pull to "return" to his family's old farming village in Sweden. He did that about 20 years ago, and I did my journey to Finland in 2023. In this episode I also share my story about my visit to my Finnish ancestor’s home villages in South Ostrobothnia, Finland. Beckman’s story was one of my many inspirations for my trip to Finland last year. We both agree that anyone who feels that pull and hears that song, they should go. The riches could be incalculable as we both found in our own ways. Look for “Episode 5” on my Finding Finland page. Links on my page take you to the episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Nauttia!

My latest “Finding Finland” podcast is now live. For my most recent episode, I interviewed Antti Palosaari, a Tampere, Finland-based animator and illustrator. His YouTube channel is called “Anttimation.” He prefers to be called “non-award winning,” which I think fits with his storytelling and artistic style. I love his work. I found his videos before I visited Finland in late August 2023, and they were remarkably helpful to me in understanding Finnish mythology and Finnish history. We both share an appreciation of facts—a refreshing thing to discover—and the power of myths. You can find this podcast episode on my “Finding Finland” podcast page. At some point, I may need to create another “hub” page for these conversations. For now, that is home, and I hope everyone enjoys meeting Antti and learning more about Finnish trolls. Links on my page take you to the episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Nauttia! https://lnkd.in/girA5jEH

This week I published my latest episode of my “Finding Finland” podcast. I’m joined by Laura Aho, publicist for the Genealogical Society of Finland, or Suomen Sukututkimusseura. See it here: https://lnkd.in/geHNecAp. The organization, founded in 1917, is an education and memory institution based in Helsinki, Finland. As a scientific society, it promotes Finnish family and personal history research, and it provides extensive genealogical resources for researchers in Finland and around the world. We talked about her organization’s services, the emergence of DNA testing in the field of genealogy, and also the “democratization” of the field, now driven by popular culture. For the society, Aho also publishes the organization’s Jalmari magazine, a digital magazine for society members published 11 times a year. Aho is also a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki, majoring in Latin language and Roman literature. She speaks seven languages, including Finnish, in addition to knowing Greek and Latin, and is the author of many articles in her fields of study and collaborator on research projects in her home country and Europe. I first connected with Aho in the summer 2023, just before I visited Finland for my first time. After I returned and shared my story of reconnecting with my Finnish kin there, she collaborated with me to publish a version of my personal family story connecting with long lost kin, in the February 2024 issue of Jalmari. That story also explores the history of Finnish immigration to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century, fueled by events like Finland’s great famine of the 1860s and changes in agriculture leading to more than 344,000 Finnish people to immigrate to the United states between 1871 and 1930. Two of the immigrants were my great grandparents who settled in Hancock, Michigan. -Rudy Owens' "Finding Finland" podcast page: https://lnkd.in/girA5jEH -Genealogical Society of Finland: www.genealogia.fi/en/

Thanks to one of my wonderful Finnish relatives, it appears I found a future guest who can join my "Finding Finland" podcast to talk about the Finnish baby box, or äitiyspakkaus. I can't wait to record this! Since 1937 in Finland, these have been given to expectant moms to support them and their child's early start. They were designed as a way to address high infant mortality rates. Each year, the roll out of boxes and their contents gets media attention in Finland, like this story from late April 2024. https://lnkd.in/gx9bd-ym. Coverage of the latest baby box offerings in Finland by YLE noted: "The free-of-charge package is a maternity allowance filled with baby essentials for the first year of a child's life. ... around two-thirds of expectant mothers in Finland choose the maternity package, with up to 95 percent of first-time mothers opting for the benefit." The funding and distribution of äitiyspakkaus is one of the many government actions in Finland that contribute to the country having one of the lowest infant mortality rates of all countries. Their use also has been catching on in countries outside of the Nordic region. I personally love that Finland is determined to help moms and infants. They even celebrate the äitiyspakkaus in the Finnish National Museum in Helsinki (Suomen kansallismuseo)! For folks not familiar with äitiyspakkaus, the Finnish Heritage Museum in Fairport, Ohio has a very nice summary of their importance and how they represent Finnish policy decisions to invest in their people through interventions like these. https://lnkd.in/g8cTRxxg. The USA's very own Library of Congress even celebrated the äitiyspakkaus in 2022! https://lnkd.in/gQuwwWsn

My “Finding Finland” podcast is launched. My focus is literally “all things Finland.” It explores Finland from a Finnish-American perspective and the meaning of those ties. We’ll also explore Finnish society and culture and why Finland has become wildly cool—or as the Finns say, “Siistia!” For the seventh year in a row in March 2024, the United Nations named it the happiest country in the world. I will examine Finnish success stories in health and public health, Finnish culture, artists who are creating distinct Finnish content, Finnish current affairs, saunas (naturally), Finnish and American connections, and Finnish history and genealogy. My guest for episode 2, Jack Steinmann, presented a placemaking concept in Hancock, Michigan in late February 2024 during Sauna Week. He proposed a community owned, led, and accessible public sauna for residents and visitors alike in a city with deep Finnish-American roots from the late 1800s on. See our conversation here: https://lnkd.in/gmG7CM5i. Steinmann’s presentation at the Finnish American Heritage Center was hosted by the Finnish Theme Committee.  Some 50 area residents and visitors attended and discussed potential interest in bringing a public sauna to Hancock, the nesting place of Finnish America. Hancock is where my great grandparents, both from Finland, settled in the early 1900s, after emigrating to the United States, and they lived here for decades. During our conversation we discussed what makes for a “community sauna.” I shared my perspectives on how public saunas and sauna business that are accessible and affordable thrive in Finland, in cities like Tampere, sauna capital of the world. Let me know what you think. You can find my “Finding Finland” page here: https://lnkd.in/girA5jEH. (You'll find links to audio versions of my podcast with Steinmann on that page.) For now "Finding Finland" has a home on my website, with all of my other Finnish-themed stories, photos, and resources. I may move it to a dedicated podcast platform soon.

Sky News published a news documentary a bit more than three weeks ago on the one-year anniversary of the violent civil war in Sudan, which has displaced more people (and also more children) than any conflict raging on the planet. The reporter, Sky’s Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir, is a native of Sudan. She brings a personal perspective to what she covers. I found the coverage fair and powerful. https://lnkd.in/gkFMz5Q2