Seven of our MPH students attended the 2019 annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA), held November 2-6, 2019, in Philadelphia, PA. What follows is a post from one of the attendees.
by Margaret Major, BA
Attending APHA was a great opportunity to see firsthand the variety of disciplines and people that make up the public health field. I attended sessions that explored the feasibility of providing preventive health interventions in faith-based environments and the risk and protective factors for childhood adverse experiences. I also shared breakfast and conversation with high school youth engaged in community-based participatory research in North Carolina. At times the breadth and number of topics seemed overwhelming, but at the end of a long day hustling around the Philadelphia convention center, I would reflect on all the things I learned and felt inspired by the endless possibilities to use science and data to effect real social, environmental and political change.
One of the presentations that was particularly interesting to me was by Dr. Sandro Galea, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health. He shared disturbing data showing how the beliefs about the role that science and scientists should play in influencing and determining scientific policy is increasingly called into question by people of both major political parties. For example, only 34% of Republicans and 54% of Democrats said that compared with other people, “scientific experts are usually better at making science policy decisions”. If we can’t have faith in the credibility of science, how can we make evidence-based decisions on issues as varied as what aspects of the education system to invest in, which strategies are most effective at decreasing bullying among middle school youth, and what combinations of healthy items will actually sell in hospital cafeterias? This was a call to equip myself with critical thinking skills, scientific tools and strategies, and a commitment to ethics and empirical truths as I embark on my journey to become a social epidemiologist.
The photo below, shared in Dr. Galea’s presentation, underscores both the need to hold ourselves and our research to high scientific standards, and the need to tune into the values that govern the populations we seek to serve through evidence-based health programs, policies and systems. The axis on the left shows “values that allow action” while the axis at the bottom shows “knowledge that informs action”. We have the science and data to prove that providing safe places for people who are addicted to drugs to use them, ultimately leads to more people entering and completing treatment for drug addiction. However, our values and ideas about people who use drugs are not yet aligned with the science. I was already excited about the power of science to develop innovative solutions to complex problems. However, when I left this talk, I felt compelled to embrace the opportunity and obligation posed by Dr. Galea to communicate these innovations in ways that inspire hearts, minds and votes for action.
Margaret Major, BA, is a first-year MPH student, concentrating in Maternal and Child Health, who plans to graduate in May 2021. She is interested in using social epidemiology to better understand how the social world impacts the health of communities and individuals. She also loves playing soccer, learning new languages and taking time to enjoy a good cup of coffee.
