Happy Holidays! I hope you have all enjoyed time off with family and friends. With the closing of 2024, the news is filled with the “best of 2024” alongside predictions for 2025. I will offer my one prediction for 2025: it will be the year that public health – everything from the food we eat to infectious disease and vaccines to chronic disease – is discussed. Our work will be discussed at the dinner table and endlessly debated on social media; it will be the subject of newspaper articles, newsletters, and advertising campaigns; and public health science will be something everyone will want to know more about.
We will have a chance to talk about the wide array of public health influences and to tell our stories. We have an opportunity to explain our science and draw more people to our field. To have these conversations, we must be prepared and remember that our mission is not to spar with one political or ideological side or the other. Rather, it is to dispel myths and provide information based on science so that people, indeed society, can make informed decisions. It is our duty to be a trusted source and impartial in our research and recommendations.
What is public health? Your family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues may be more familiar with drugs and treatments than they are about what makes our communities healthy. Of course, things like clean air and water, safe housing and food, absence of physical and mental assaults come immediately to mind. But what about a good education, including the ability to dissect scientific information, or financial viability? What about health care access like health insurance, affordability, specialists, and even legislative freedom to access the drugs and treatments that can help them? What about information such as the harms of high concentration THC, the need to wear a bicycle helmet, and so many more? Public health is central to each of these and more. In addition, some forms of public health fall in the realm of “I never want to see another…” with the blank filled in with items such as overdose, accidental or intentional injury, late-stage cancer diagnosis, all things that can be prevented with evidenced-based practices.
Such questions are at the heart of public health. They determine whether we live healthy lives, which, in turn, determines our capacity to thrive. Much of public health is about addressing the behaviors, social and political determinants of health, and the regulations that govern industry that shape our environments and well-being. This is where public health science contributes to making the world healthier by creating conditions where disease does not emerge. Many of these topics are dependent on a shared interpretation of the available evidence. That is where we, as public health scientists, come in – where we tell our stories of how public health worked well rather than allowing it to become the fodder of distrust.
Here's an important part of telling our stories at the dinner table, neighborhood potluck, gym class, professional venues, and all the other places we find ourselves: Listen to others’ stories. What is informing their opinions? Is it an experience they had or the experience of someone they now? Was it a compelling story on social media? Is it fear based as many opinions are formed to avoid harm. It is just as important for us to listen and understand as it is for us to inform. For us, much of public health is “settled science.” But for others, they are getting bombarded with information, science is evolving, and what was best practice today and can quickly change. Household items that have been used for years (think black plastics) are suddenly harmful. It is easy for someone who does not live in our space to become exasperated. We must listen to the exasperation and be prepared to answer questions. Meeting people where they are is the only way to make progress.
The New Year is upon us. 2025 will be filled with opportunity for public health. Importantly, this is not a time to merely survive but thrive. Political landscapes change and we will witness many over the course of our lifetimes, but Public health endures.
Have a wonderful New Year! I look forward to our continued partnership and am eager explore new possibilities in the weeks and months ahead.
