The current moment in public health—with widespread budget cuts and layoffs—may seem unprecedented, but it is part of a historical pattern, according to Michelle Williams, a former dean of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and current adjunct professor.
In an April 7 opinion piece in The Hill, she wrote that many public health advances over the past century, such as school nurses and workplace safety protections, have been met with backlash, followed by eventual victory by reformers.
“That history is not a reason for complacency. It is a road map,” she wrote in the piece, which was published in recognition of National Public Health Week (April 6-12). She called for the public health community to do a better job communicating the value of the field, “relentlessly, plainly and in the language that reaches people who do not already agree with us.”
And she asked policymakers to consider the proposition that a nation’s strength should be measured in the health of its people, not just the strength of its economy or military. She wrote, “Public health is public wealth. The evidence is overwhelming. The history is clear. The choice, as it has always been, is ours.”
Read The Hill opinion piece: This public health week, the US is squandering health and wealth
