Moving the Principles of Population Health Science to the Heart of Public Health Practice | Longwood

ABSTRACT

As noted by Frank et al. (2022), three recent epidemics – COVID-19, obesity and the health-related consequences of climate change – illustrate how public health has fallen short in applying its core underlying principles. Building on this work, I ask two questions: Why is it that the principles that can productively move public health forward have not influenced practice sufficiently to lead to a different response to emerging pandemics? What might we do to turn a corner and make these principles a foundational element of all that public health does? I offer a few thoughts on both these questions.

Our responsibility in a time of war | The Healthiest Goldfish

On Thursday February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Although there had been a steady drumbeat of warnings that this invasion was imminent, the war that followed was still a jarring reminder of the evils of war, of an event that felt out of place and time, a twentieth-century war unfold in a twenty-first century context. For a time, it was possible to think such a conflict could not emerge in our highly interconnected and interdependent world. It was particularly striking to see such a war in Europe, where our present interconnectedness emerged, in part, from the ashes of two world wars—conflicts which taught us, we thought, to never again fight in such a way.

Seeing our failure to learn the lessons of history has been, I must admit, a cause for some despair, as I have asked myself: what can we do, as individuals, at moments like this? How much power does the American or Russian citizen have to stop a war when the forces of illiberalism seem bent on waging one? It is incredible to think that all this destruction has been wrought by the choices of such a small number of people—really, by the choices of one man, motivated by abstract notions of imperial glory and resentment for how the world changed over 30 years ago.

Read more at The Healthiest Goldfish.

Public health within reason | The Healthiest Goldfish

A bit of an opening announcement: This is going to be the last regular weekly Healthiest Goldfish.

When I started The Healthiest Goldfish, my aim was to write a series of reflections about the forces that shape health. These reflections were to be informed by our experience of COVID-19, although hopefully not unduly constrained or defined by the urgencies of the moment, pressing as they were. Indeed, one of the joys of writing is seeing thoughts and ideas evolve and not always knowing the ways in which they will do so. Much of my writing in this space did indeed concern the lessons of COVID-19 and how they point us towards engaging with the foundational drivers of health. From the role of money and resources in shaping health to the dangers of moralism in public health, to the ineluctable importance of complexity, the themes of this newsletter intersected with much that I have written on throughout my career and which have risen to the fore during the crisis of the last two years. It is also true that interwoven with these themes have been a number of detours, touching on subjects as diverse as social media, UFOs, and the importance of good faith argument.

Read more at The Healthiest Goldfish.

Now What? | The Turning Point

Nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, we conclude this series of The Turning Point essays in Public Health Post, by asking: what comes next? 

Nearly 800,000 Americans, more than 5 million people worldwide, have died of Covid-19.  More than 250 million people have been infected across the globe. The health effects of long- Covid remain unclear but will likely affect millions worldwide. It is clear that the health consequences of the economic and social upheaval due to Covid-19—mental illness, drug overdose, higher death rates from heart disease—will stay with us for years to come. 

And, of course, none of this is quite over yet.   As we write, the pandemic remains with us, with cases among the unvaccinated on the rise throughout much of the U.S., and the pandemic in various stages of ebb and flow in countries around the world.  An unprecedented global effort to vaccinate as many people as possible has had successes, notably an historic rapid development of safe and effective vaccines delivered to billions of people in record time, and many failures, notably the patchy delivery of vaccines to low-income countries, and the uneven distribution of vaccines within high-income countries.

Now what? 

Read more at The Turning Point.

The next generation: The kids are (probably) alright | The Healthiest Goldfish

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

So (allegedly) said Socrates. If the attribution is correct, it would appear that even the ancients participated in the time-honored tradition of older generations complaining about the young. What is perhaps most striking about Socrates’ complaint is how modern it sounds. His accusations—that the young lack manners, disrespect their elders, talk foolishly, and love luxury (as opposed to honest hard work, presumably)—could well have been said by any older person today, perhaps while shooing the young off their proverbial lawn.

Consider, for example, common criticisms of Millennials and Generation Z—the age cohorts born in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. They have been accused of entitlement, oversensitivity, and lacking a robust work ethic. These accusations are variations on old themes. It is perhaps as inevitable as the changing seasons that generations eventually grow up, look to the young, and ask “Are the kids alright?”

Read more at The Healthiest Goldfish.

Will We Stop Being Afraid? | The Turning Point

The Covid-19 pandemic was terrifying, justifiably so. A disease that was previously unheard of in 2019 became the third leading cause of death in 2020. As of today, more than 780,000 Americans died—more than 780,000 mothers, fathers, aunts, grandfathers, lovers, sisters, and friends. The disease, transmitted through a respiratory virus, has evoked horror movie tropes—we never knew whether we were close to someone who was infected, or even whether we ourselves might be infected, spreading the disease to others. 

In 2020, we became afraid quickly, changing how we live in ways that were previously unimaginable over the course of a few short weeks. We kept our distance from others, shifted workplace patterns that had characterized our whole lives, started wearing masks in public spaces, changed or canceled our travel plans, changed our minds about eating in restaurants. Fear of illness and death became a key predictor in our willingness to take measures to slow the spread of Covid-19. Fear was useful—it kept us safe, it saved lives—and gave public health messages their emotional appeal. The opposite of fear was not fearlessness, it was carelessness, which wore the covering of an opposing fear, the loss of personal autonomy, as many complained about quarantines and government mandates.

Read the full post at The Turning Point.