As the battle against COVID continues, should we also look ahead to the next pandemic? | Greater Boston

Dr. Sandro Galea, epidemiologist and dean of Boston University’s School of Public Health, warns the United States should be preparing for the pandemic after coronavirus, and address the longstanding health and structural inequities that exacerbated this one. He lays out his argument in his new book ‘The Contagion Next Time,' and joined Jim Braude to explain.

The next pandemic is coming – here’s a plan | KERA Think with Krys Boyd

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the failings of the American health care system. Dr. Sandro Galea is a physician, epidemiologist and Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how we can strengthen public health resources to not only respond to the next pandemic but strive for equity in the way we approach the health of the nation. His book is called “The Contagion Next Time.”

Dr. Sandro Galea tells us in his book "The Contagion Next Time” lessons from this pandemic so that we can prevent another one | CityLine WCVB Boston

The Dean of the Boston University School of Public Health Dr. Sandro Galea tells us in his book "The Contagion Next Time” that we need to learn lessons from this pandemic so that we can prevent another one. He argues that economic inequality and lack of access to healthcare for all must be addressed.

Preparing for the next pandemic and improving the health of all | NPR for the Cape, Coast & Islands

The United States is beginning to emerge from the COVID 19 pandemic, as more people are vaccinated and cases are declining. After more than 18 months of life with COVID, many are ready to put the pandemic behind them and move on. Dr. Sandro Galea argues that instead of thinking our work is done, now is the very time we need to take steps to be better prepared for the next pandemic. Dr. Galea is an epidemiologist and professor at Boston University School of Health. We talk with him about his new book that outlines what it will take to be prepared. It’s titled The Contagion Next Time.

Listen at https://www.capeandislands.org/show/the-point/2021-11-04/preparing-for-the-next-pandemic-and-improving-the-health-of-all.

Priorities for Health in the Post-COVID-19 Era | MEDiversity Week 2021, University of Utah

The triumphs and tragedies of COVID-19 present opportunities to address missteps and invest differently to create a more equitable post-pandemic health system, said Dr. Sandro Galea, physician, author, dean, and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. 

Galea shared these insights during his virtual keynote address on October 29 to kick off the University of Utah’s 2021 MEDiversity Week.

In keeping with this year’s theme, “Intersectionality in Health Education and Care,” MEDiversity Week participants explored how recognizing and understanding intersectional identities can help health care providers better serve their patients. The week wrapped up with the Inclusive Excellence Awards on November 5. 

Using charts to underscore his points, Galea began his talk on a positive note, highlighting what went right during the pandemic. He shared how the healthcare system quickly adapted to the new disease and got better at treating it. The biggest triumph was the development of two vaccines with a more than 90 percent efficacy rate within eight months of the onset of the virus. The successes reflect the nation’s longtime investment in hospitals, medicine, and health systems, he said.

“I think it serves us well to recognize where we did go right,” Galea said. “This was a really rapid development of outstanding life-saving technology. But it wasn’t, of course, just eight months. In fact, it had been years and decades of investment that goes into these vaccines.”

Amid all that went right, Galea pointed out that a lot went wrong.

The pandemic exposed and exacerbated longstanding disparities, which hit minorities, particularly Black, Latinx, and Native Americans, the hardest. Mitigation efforts that protected some people from the coronavirus left others at increased risk of contracting the disease. 

For example, Galea noted that White Americans and people in higher income brackets were more likely to have jobs that they could work from home. But Black workers, who were more likely to have low-wage and frontline jobs, such as cashiers and food processing plant workers, did not. Moreover, Black Americans tend to have more underlying health conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, which put them at higher risk of more severe COVID-19 illness. 

“The more income you have, the less likely you are to have underlying conditions making you vulnerable to COVID,” Galea said. “This all reflects the legacy of decades and centuries of marginalization faced by groups in this country, particularly Black Americans. It all goes back to slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other policies like redlining.”

As a result, Black Americans had more than twice the risk of death than white Americans from COVID-19, and Black men had a three-year loss of life expectancy. 

“These deeper inequalities are the direct result of the type of efforts we took to mitigate COVID-19,” Galea said. “We are actually putting in place things that are further disadvantaging [vulnerable populations], which is really troubling and sad.”

The disparities reflect the nation’s underinvestment in what makes people healthy and what keeps them healthy if a crisis occurs, he said. The United States spends more on medicine than on determinants of health, such as nutrition, exercise, physical environments, social supports, income, and education. 

To close health gaps, Galea stressed the need for increased investment in public health and the well-being of people. 

“We need to address the conditions,” Galea said. “The vast majority of health issues are preventable.”

Galea also challenged the “blue-leaning” health and science establishment to reflect on their bias and intolerance of different opinions and beliefs.

“We’ve made the mistake of casting alternative perspectives on what we should be doing during COVID as a red provocation, when in fact it really simply represents the plurality of ideas that we should be tolerating to get to a better place that fully understands the whole country,” he said.

In closing, Galea urged the audience “to seize this COVID-19 moment of opportunity” to understand what makes and maintains a healthy community, then advocate for investing differently to achieve it. He then offered three approaches to improving better health for all – humility, compassion, and reform through reason.

Humility reflects an awareness of one’s limits in understanding, knowledge and importance. However, arrogance “can blind us to the need to make sure that what we are doing reflects the needs of diverse populations in an inclusive manner,” he said.

Secondly, Galea encouraged the practice of “radical compassion,” emphasizing that compassion is not charity but recognition of our shared humanity. To illustrate the compassionate approach, Galea returned to his example of COVID-19 mitigation efforts. Compassion would have prompted decision-makers to consider the impact of stay-at-home orders on low-wage, frontline workers and do more to protect them. “And we utterly didn’t do that,” he said.

In explaining his third approach, Galea said reform through reason recognizes that it takes a radical vision to create a healthier world, but it happens through pragmatism and incremental, inclusive progress that brings everyone along, regardless of their political views.

“I think that those of us in health have a particular responsibility, a real moral responsibility, to articulate the causes of health so that we can create a healthier world,” he said.

After his talk, Galea joined a panel of Utah healthcare experts to discuss “Priorities for Health in the Post-COVID Era.” 

Panelists shared their thoughts on centering intersectionality, navigating political and ideological divides, the importance of community engagement, and moving forward to advance health equity.

Moderator Jessie Mandle, deputy director and senior policy analyst at Voices for Utah Children, asked how to create a narrative to convince people what it takes to be healthy.

“Health is equally of concern to red people and blue people,” said Mandle, referring to political party affiliations. “If only blue people are listening, we’re doing something wrong.”

Valerie Flattes, Ph.D., a faculty member in the University of Utah College of Nursing, spoke of issues affecting the Black community, such as misinformation, promotion of vaccines, and working from home. 

“People in the community can tell us what the issues are and the problems are,” Flattes said. “It has to be the right approach if you want to get the community engaged.”

José E. Rodríguez, M.D., associate vice president for health equity, diversity, & inclusion and professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, reflected on the intersection of underinvestment and disparities affecting Black populations. “We are choosing to fund health inequities,” Rodíguez said.

Ivette A. López, Ph.D., said her students give her hope for positive change as they engage with diverse communities. 

“They see that there’s a need for transformation of systems,” said López, professor of public health in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and deputy director of the Utah Area Health Education Centers. “They see a need for more diversity among themselves.”

Sandro Galea on Preventing the Next Pandemic In Conversation with Andrew Keen | Keen On

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.

In this episode Andrew is joined by by Sandro Galea, the author of The Contagion Next Time, to discuss how investing in the healthiest population possible is literally an act of national security against a future pandemic.

Preparing for the next pandemic means fundamentally shifting how we view health | WBUR

Are we ready for the next pandemic?

Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of Boston University's School of Public Health, says not quite. It may seem extreme to ponder the next pandemic when we're still in the middle of one, but for Dr. Galea and other public health leaders, it's exactly the type of question we need to be asking now.

In his new book, "The Contagion Next Time," Dr. Galea takes stock of the world's health before COVID-19, and where we are now as we look to future threats. His conclusion? Health is not an individual problem. It's collective, and poor collective health has global implications.

Dr. Galea joins us to discuss his new book and how to better prepare.

Why addressing economic inequality could help build pandemic resiliency | Marketplace

More than 5 million people have died from COVID-19 since the virus emerged two years ago, according to data released Monday from Johns Hopkins University.

Even as total cases and deaths continue to rise, public health experts are already thinking about how to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.

In a new book called “The Contagion Next Time,” Dr. Sandro Galea, an epidemiologist and dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, argues that pandemic preparation should include addressing underlying flaws in the economy. 

He spoke with Marketplace’s Amy Scott about how systemic issues like racism and economic inequality made the United States more vulnerable to COVID-19.

Preparing for the Next Pandemic (Podcast) | Bloomberg Businessweek

Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean of Boston University School of Public Health, discusses the Covid pandemic and his new book "The Contagion Next Time." Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Joel Weber and Bloomberg News Senior Investigations Writer Sheridan Prasso talk about what happened to the billions in IMF pandemic relief. Bloomberg New Economy Editorial Director Andy Browne explains why a China-U.S. rivalry threatens the climate change fight. Bloomberg News Finance and Investing Reporter Eleanor Song shares the details of her story Wall Street Is Amassing a Crypto Army and Paying Up for Recruits. And We Drive to the Close with Hank Smith, CIO of Haverford Trust.

Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.

Fixing Public Health Inequities...Before Next Time | The Brian Lehrer Show

Sandro Galea, physician and epidemiologist, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health and the author of The Contagion Next Time (Oxford University Press, 2021) argues that the problems in U.S. public health systems, including racial disparities, predated the pandemic and need to be repaired before the next crisis.

→EVENT: Dr. Galea has a virtual book event coming up on Thursday, Nov. 5 at 5 pm via the Harvard Book Store where he'll be in conversation with Arianna Huffington.  

Kickoff Keynote: Our Pandemic Future | Boston Book Festival

Our opening session spotlights the profound effects of the pandemic and what we must do to shore up the very foundation of our society to avoid a similar catastrophe in the future. In the highly lauded Apollo’s Arrow, bestselling author, physician, sociologist, and public health expert Nicholas A. Christakis discusses what it means to live with plague. In The Contagion Next Time, physician, epidemiologist and bestselling author Sandro Galea argues that poor public health, economic inequalities, and racism are largely to blame for our inadequate preparation and response to the crisis. Our host for this timely session is Vanessa Kerry, director of the Program in Global Public Policy and Social Change in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Watch the replay here.

The Contagion Next Time | New Books Network

How can we create a healthier world and prevent the crisis next time? In a few short months, COVID-19 devastated the world and, in particular, the United States. It infected millions, killed hundreds of thousands, and effectively made the earth stand still. Yet America was already in poor health before COVID-19 appeared. Racism, marginalization, socioeconomic inequality--our failure to address these forces left us vulnerable to COVID-19 and the ensuing global health crisis it became. Had we tackled these challenges twenty years ago, after the outbreak of SARS, perhaps COVID-19 could have been quickly contained. Instead, we allowed our systems to deteriorate. 

Following on the themes of his award-winning publication Well, Sandro Galea's The Contagion Next Time (Oxford UP, 2021) articulates the foundational forces shaping health in our society and how we can strengthen them to prevent the next outbreak from becoming a pandemic. Because while no one could have predicted that a pandemic would strike when it did, we did know that a pandemic would strike, sooner or later. We're still not ready for the next pandemic. But we can be--we must be. In lyrical prose, The Contagion Next Time challenges all of us to tackle the deep-rooted obstacles preventing us from becoming a truly vibrant and equitable nation, reminding us of what we've seemed to have forgotten: that our health is a public good worth protecting.

Claire Clark is a medical educator, historian of medicine, and associate professor in the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine. She teaches and writes about health behavior in historical context.

Priorities for post-COVID-19 public health research, education and practice | Glasgow Centre for Population Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept the world, with more than four million people dying of the disease so far. COVID-19 is the defining public health crisis of a generation, and it should generate a full-scale assessment of how public health has fared in this moment – what we have done well and what we have not, and the implications this has for the future of public health.

This presentation addressed priorities for research, education, and practice agendas in the post-COVID-19 world.

For more information, visit https://www.gcph.co.uk/events/216.

This is the personal website of Sandro Galea. All photos are taken by Sandro Galea.