The Declaration of Interdependence.
We asked 45 leaders in public health, healthcare, global development, advocacy, media, and other fields to imagine, in 100 words or fewer, public health in the year 2050.
The Declaration of Interdependence
We asked 45 leaders in public health, healthcare, global development, advocacy, media, and other fields to imagine, in 100 words or fewer, public health in the year 2050.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences change everything, bringing attention to public health as never before. In many respects, the pandemic has brought to light both our underinvestment in the public health structures that we need to prevent—and mitigate—the spread of new pathogens, and in the social, economic, and cultural conditions that shape the health of populations. The civil unrest that has followed has further highlighted deep-seated issues of racism and racial injustice that have, for centuries, shaped health.
Before the pandemic started, we asked 45 leaders in public health, healthcare, global development, advocacy, media, and other fields to imagine, in 100 words or fewer, public health in the year 2050; we present their responses in this year’s SPH This Year, illuminating the directions in which the field is headed.
Some responses reflect directly on the anxieties of the moment, but most, on the fundamentals of public health—including climate change, urbanization, health equity, and prevention—and how these forces need to be an inevitable part of our work toward building a healthier world. Their thoughts build on, and inform, the public health conversations we have regularly at the school on issues of contemporary consequence that also look to the future, and that reflect and elevate the scholarship and ideas generated by SPH researchers and scholars. As a school, our goal is to meet the challenge of the moment—and of the coming years and decades.
