The following paper explores the various effects of stress on the endocrine system. Many understand that being stressed can jeopardize maintaining adequate health, but what specifically happens when humans are stressed? Why does stress affect human health? This paper delves into background information, previous research, and the depths to which stress negatively affects the body. The effects stress has on the endocrine system, specifically on the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis (HPT) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), is discussed, and additionally, at home de-stressing methods are researched. The study included a set of participants at Arizona State University. The method took place over the course of 2 weeks: one normal week, and the other with the implementation of a de-stressing method. The normal week involved the participants living their daily lives with the addition of a stress-measuring survey, while the second week involved implementing a de-stressing method and stress-measuring survey. The purpose of this study was to discover if there was a correlation between performing these relaxation activities and decreasing stress levels in ASU students. The results found that students reported they felt more relaxed and calm after the activities. Overall, this thesis provides information and first hand research on the effects of stress and stress-reducing activities and discusses the importance of maintaining lower stress levels throughout everyday life.

The following paper explores the various effects of stress on the endocrine system. Many understand that being stressed can jeopardize maintaining adequate health, but what specifically happens when humans are stressed? Why does stress affect human health? This paper delves into background information, previous research, and the depths to which stress negatively affects the body. The effects stress has on the endocrine system, specifically on the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis (HPT) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), is discussed, and additionally, at home de-stressing methods are researched. The study included a set of participants at Arizona State University. The method took place over the course of 2 weeks: one normal week, and the other with the implementation of a de-stressing method. The normal week involved the participants living their daily lives with the addition of a stress-measuring survey, while the second week involved implementing a de-stressing method and stress-measuring survey. The purpose of this study was to discover if there was a correlation between performing these relaxation activities and decreasing stress levels in ASU students. The results found that students reported they felt more relaxed and calm after the activities. Overall, this thesis provides information and first hand research on the effects of stress and stress-reducing activities and discusses the importance of maintaining lower stress levels throughout everyday life.

Peer-reviewed literature on the effects of sound and music on babies ranging from the prenatal period to the postnatal period, called the perinatal period moving forward, is vast. Substantial research has been directed towards the neural connections they make with sound, musical therapy, audio learning, and much more. The primary focus of this thesis was to review the current literature on how the father's voice affects the fetus during the perinatal period. During the preliminary research of the topic, the process faced an immediate problem as this concept had very little substantial sources. The number of relevant articles or documents with the term “father” in the title can be counted on one hand. In some cases, research that explored the father’s voice did so only as a supporting statistic or comparison to the main goal of exploring the mother’s voice. The mother’s voice has been prioritized as a research topic because of the immediate physical connection between the mother and the child throughout the entire pregnancy. The third semester of pregnancy is often a period of study since what the mother senses, says or does will somehow translate into an experience for the child’s developing brain. On the other hand, the father’s voice has been considered an environmental sound, a position justified by some researchers due to phenomena such as differing levels of fetal attention and observed “preference” of a newborn. The scarcity of research regarding the father’s voice, or the voice of a non-parental male, can be explained in several ways. These include the father’s potential absence due to work, inherited ideologies and biases against active parenting for the father, parental roles, and their unwillingness to utilize infant-directed speech and singing for psychological reasons, during the perinatal period, compared to that of the mother. Researching ways to deepen the relationship between the father and baby during the perinatal period, along with developing new biotechnologies for different kinds of evaluative tests, will help advance the subject matter of how the father’s voice impacts a baby to a larger scale.

The United States healthcare system does not perform as well as other countries including Germany and England, despite spending the most money on healthcare. It is well-established that there have been attempts at reform in the U.S. healthcare system multiple times in the past. This research paper describes the health care systems in the U.S., Germany, and England to analyze the strengths to create practical healthcare reform ideas for the U.S. This was done by describing each of the country's health care systems in detail, including the history of each country's health care system, the quality of care, the access to care, and the funding of the health care system. Based on this analysis of these health care systems, recommendations for health care reform are provided for the U.S. with revisions to the Affordable Care Act.

Patent protection creates an encouraging environment for innovation, but it can be a hindrance to the availability of new medications. There are many countries that still harbor this competition while ensuring that all citizens have access to these medications. There are downsides to certain patent systems, but with a few modifications they can be remedied to achieve the highest level of access, quality of care, and best cost for the insured. In most of the countries reviewed, the patent system is thoroughly regulated with the consumers in mind. There are opportunities for manufacturers to create generic and cost effective medications within the typical patent protection timeline to ensure access to new medications. The systems that are in place encourage innovation with medical devices and medication by providing incentives for the researchers.

COVID-19 has been challenging for nearly everyone in different ways. Healthcare organizations have had to quickly change policy, modify operations, reorganize facilities, hire, and train staff to overcome COVID-19 related challenges to be able to still provide care for patients, all while being mindful of the protection of their staff. Some healthcare organizations have responded particularly well, perhaps due to preparedness, planning, or exceptional leadership in times of crisis. To explore this, we invited seven healthcare system leaders from three different organizations in Arizona to talk about how they overcame challenges at the beginning of this pandemic with effective strategies and any leadership tips they had for the future. After the interviews were conducted, the interviews were transcribed, coded qualitatively, and separated into themes and categories to analyze their answers to the questions asked. The results and conclusions included strategies such as having open and honest communication, teamwork, rapidly developing communicating policies, and widely adopting new work practices like Telemedicine, Zoom, and working at home as crucial. This report is designed to assist in aiding and inspiring future or other leaders to be better prepared for solving various challenges with other emergencies that arise in the future.