{"id":155574,"date":"2019-11-07T15:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T20:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=155574"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:20:15","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:20:15","slug":"nothing-less-than-a-world-that-generates-health","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2019\/nothing-less-than-a-world-that-generates-health\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We Need Nothing Less Than a World That Generates Health’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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November 7, 2019<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\"DeanPublic health practitioners bear \u201ca collective responsibility and a unique opportunity to create a healthier world,\u201d says Sandro Galea<\/a>, dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at the School of Public Health.<\/p>\n

These are sentiments Galea advances through SPH\u2019s mission every day, and on November 3 he shared them with an audience of over 6,000 people as the keynote speaker for the Opening General Session of the American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting and Expo<\/a>, held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Now in its 147th<\/sup> year, the largest annual public health gathering in the world convened 13,000 of the field\u2019s researchers, educators, students, and more from November 2-6, to rally under the theme \u201cCreating the healthiest nation. For science. For action. For health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following opening remarks by Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Galea delivered a 20-minute speech in which he challenged each audience member to translate their research and knowledge into action to tackle critical, wide-spread health barriers such as racism and a lack of access to safe neighborhoods and affordable education, housing, nutritious food, and health care.<\/p>\n

But he began with a note of optimism. \u201cWe are indeed living in a healthier world than ever before,\u201d Galea said, citing less overall poverty and hunger, a greater pursuit of education, and higher life expectancies. \u201cBut that is not the full story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Graph<\/a>Although people are living longer today\u2014there are 800,000 fewer deaths in the US now than there were in the 1960s\u2014when compared to other countries that perform well on health, such as Japan, the US has an excess of another 800,000 deaths, Galea said. \u201cWe are better than we once were, but we are nowhere near as good as we can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galea singled out entrenched racism, calling it \u201cone of our country\u2019s greatest sins\u201d and illustrating how it has harmed health in the US for generations. \u201cThe consequences of slavery and material disadvantage have been felt by African Americans and racial minorities in this country for centuries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also acknowledged the incredible contributions of medical technology and medicine, but stressed that a total investment in discovery science is a detriment to the health of whole populations. \u201cPrioritizing medicine and technology at the expense of population-level innovation does little to reverse the burden of disease that so disproportionately affects America,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The good, albeit frustrating, news? We already know how to improve the health of the public, he said: by improving the conditions that shape health.<\/p>\n

He urged the audience to seize upon the \u201creasonable outrage\u201d currently reverberating throughout the country, as people protest and demand federal action to combat racial and gender inequalities, climate change, poverty, and violence. \u201cThis is a moment of opportunity for all of us in this room,\u201d Galea said.<\/p>\n

He identified three forces that currently stand in the way of a healthier world: politics\u2014how a polarized nation has prevented effective public policy through facts and research; science\u2014how the science field has shifted its focus from population health to individual health; and the story\u2014how health narratives focus on medicine, rather than public health.<\/p>\n

\"\"Galea also offered three clear-cut solutions to these challenges. In order to create a healthier world, he said, \u201cwe need to demand health, make our case, and tell the story of the public\u2019s health.\u201d We can demand health by supporting the industries and politicians who generate health, he said. In making the case for health, we need to make a moral case for health and \u201cshift our values to align with the science,\u201d he said, citing lack of action on gun reform.<\/p>\n

And how do we tell the story of public health? By way of example, Galea shared an analogy of health and soccer, his children\u2019s favorite sport.<\/p>\n

Consider the goalie to be medicine, he told the audience. \u201cWe all want a good goalie\u2014a good doctor or nurse when we get sick. But we would rather not get sick to begin with. So we need the other 10 players to stay healthy.\u201d Those players are gender equity, stable housing, good schools, social justice, and an end to racism: “We need nothing less than a world that generates health,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the public\u2019s health, and that is the story we must tell,\u201d Galea concluded. \u201cBecause if we do not tell it, who else will?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Jillian McKoy<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the opening session of the American Public Health Association\u2019s Annual Meeting, Dean Sandro Galea provided keynote remarks in which he called upon attendees to take on health barriers such as racism, poverty, and climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15205,"featured_media":155611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[2272,2366,2482,2178,1976,2330,1996,2283,1984,2039,2022,3214],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3531,3541],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/155574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155574"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/155574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172991,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/155574\/revisions\/172991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155574"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=155574"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=155574"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=155574"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=155574"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=155574"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=155574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}