Several of our MCH students attended the 2021 American Public Health Association (APHA) conference, October 24-27, in-person or online. What follows is a post from one of the attendees.
By Victoria Utria, BS
APHA 2021 served as a perfect introduction for my public health education. I attended sessions and plenaries on MCH (of course), elder wisdom, men’s health, racism, and more.
The session that felt tailor-made for me was called Public Health’s Identity Crisis: Who Are We? What Can We Be? Though its focus was on alternative careers for public health professionals, it made me feel secure as an “outsider” coming in. The panelists all agreed: I am not an outsider, and I do not need to “enter.” We all need to realize that ALL industries are a part of the big tent of public health. All industries have a role to play. Two panelists work or have worked for insurance companies, “the enemy,” and both shared that their firms had many proponents of universal health coverage. It is the insurance companies, not government or other organizations, that will bring about the change we want to see, they said. The way to achieve these ends is for public health-trained professionals to translate their knowledge and values into those fields.
The other advice they shared was to:
- be open, sit back and listen first,
- learn, and
- know the value you bring and lead with that.
APHA, Tulane SPHTM, and Tulane CEMCH are allowing me to follow this advice.
Some additional highlights from the conference were hearing from the CDC Director; Maine CDC Director; Granville, NC Health Department Director; and President of Trust for America, a health policy and community health organization. Seeing all levels of health management in one setting provided such clarity about how the US system functions.
My final session was on elder wisdom run by the American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Caucus. Panelists spoke about their decades of public health experience. Babette Galang, in particular, addressed the importance of incorporating and teaching traditional medicine practices into our health system.
Victoria Utria, BS., is a first-year MPH student concentrating in Maternal and Child Health. She hopes to work in implementation science and community-led design in the MCH field, both locally and in Latin America. Her main area of interest is doctor-side interventions to eliminate avoidable maternal mortality and morbidity. Victoria enjoys dancing with friends, quality time with family, and learning about different cultures. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese fluently, and is working on German and Italian.
