Dr. Galea, appreciated the opportunity to hear your thoughts last night for the Homer G. Phillips Lecture at WashU School of Medicine last night. Your approach of digging for the 'germ of truth' in obvious distortions will be incredibly useful going forward.
Thank you Drs for your continuing insights and encouragements. In your summary
" in a moment of strain we are probably well served by embracing the challenge to do better. To seeing the foundational causes, however stinging and urgent the acute symptoms. No field is guaranteed survival in its current form. The test before public health is whether we can adapt and reimagine what we do with seriousness and ambition, so that when future generations look back, they see not a discipline that lost ground and became obsolete, but one had the courage to evolve and emerge stronger "
you are essentially proposing that we perceive important emerging paradigm shifts that instruct PH away from less effective, to more responsive, effective and sustainable paradigms through which PH - as a profession - and the public's health - as a goal can flourish.
I propose a consideration: shift away from self-righteous disengagement from Public Safety (PS). PH and PS parted - in what the public can see is a hateful divorce - should not have, and should return to thoroughgoing engagement, collaboration, and shared work. PH's bad divorce with PS is - as you observe - 'obsolete'. Public's across the nation are deeply concerned about PS. Yet PH often pretends that their concerns are hyperbolic, ignorant or racist. Assumes the worst of PS professionals and treats PS that way. How many times have we heard PH elites tell the public 'oh, but crime is not that bad', or 'your fears are racist', or 'you wouldn't think that way if you looked at our data and trusted our solutions' ... but why would the public trust PH that calls them delusional, ignorant, or racist out of hand? PH's bad divorce with PS - as you observe - is 'on lost ground'. Nothing says 'lost ground' as well as the simultaneous RISE of PS concerns, in law, policy, and politics and FALL of PH! PH lost and continues to lose ground - trust, authority, jobs, etc - at the same time that PS gained and continues to gain ground.
Our neurotic - even personality-disordered - politics is like the worst effects on an abandoned or manipulated, emotionally abused child of divorce. Utterly predictable as far as I can see, and I have said for MANY YEARS at APHA and in other venues. My career with the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, University of Virginia - with faculty and researchers in psychiatry and faculty and researchers in law - codified my concerns about the dangerous divorce of PH and PS; but working from the early years with HIV in mostly rural Virginia, and advising the Virginia Department of Health, particularly with insights regarding the syndemic of HIV, substance abuse and partner and family violence, was the beginning of my thinking about this hateful divorce. So, a long while.
I propose that you look at this divorce, its history and its effects, and how a new paradigm of PH, with PS, may help us return to a thriving commitment and progress for the public's health. Thank you.
Dr. Galea, appreciated the opportunity to hear your thoughts last night for the Homer G. Phillips Lecture at WashU School of Medicine last night. Your approach of digging for the 'germ of truth' in obvious distortions will be incredibly useful going forward.
Hi Sandro! I’ve been on here for about 2 weeks, and I’m trying to meet new people.
You share some interesting posts, so I thought I’d drop a comment and introduce myself with a article, I hope that’s okay friend:
https://open.substack.com/pub/jordannuttall/p/the-plague-in-asia?r=4f55i2&utm_medium=ios
Thank you Drs for your continuing insights and encouragements. In your summary
" in a moment of strain we are probably well served by embracing the challenge to do better. To seeing the foundational causes, however stinging and urgent the acute symptoms. No field is guaranteed survival in its current form. The test before public health is whether we can adapt and reimagine what we do with seriousness and ambition, so that when future generations look back, they see not a discipline that lost ground and became obsolete, but one had the courage to evolve and emerge stronger "
you are essentially proposing that we perceive important emerging paradigm shifts that instruct PH away from less effective, to more responsive, effective and sustainable paradigms through which PH - as a profession - and the public's health - as a goal can flourish.
I propose a consideration: shift away from self-righteous disengagement from Public Safety (PS). PH and PS parted - in what the public can see is a hateful divorce - should not have, and should return to thoroughgoing engagement, collaboration, and shared work. PH's bad divorce with PS is - as you observe - 'obsolete'. Public's across the nation are deeply concerned about PS. Yet PH often pretends that their concerns are hyperbolic, ignorant or racist. Assumes the worst of PS professionals and treats PS that way. How many times have we heard PH elites tell the public 'oh, but crime is not that bad', or 'your fears are racist', or 'you wouldn't think that way if you looked at our data and trusted our solutions' ... but why would the public trust PH that calls them delusional, ignorant, or racist out of hand? PH's bad divorce with PS - as you observe - is 'on lost ground'. Nothing says 'lost ground' as well as the simultaneous RISE of PS concerns, in law, policy, and politics and FALL of PH! PH lost and continues to lose ground - trust, authority, jobs, etc - at the same time that PS gained and continues to gain ground.
Our neurotic - even personality-disordered - politics is like the worst effects on an abandoned or manipulated, emotionally abused child of divorce. Utterly predictable as far as I can see, and I have said for MANY YEARS at APHA and in other venues. My career with the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, University of Virginia - with faculty and researchers in psychiatry and faculty and researchers in law - codified my concerns about the dangerous divorce of PH and PS; but working from the early years with HIV in mostly rural Virginia, and advising the Virginia Department of Health, particularly with insights regarding the syndemic of HIV, substance abuse and partner and family violence, was the beginning of my thinking about this hateful divorce. So, a long while.
I propose that you look at this divorce, its history and its effects, and how a new paradigm of PH, with PS, may help us return to a thriving commitment and progress for the public's health. Thank you.