Opinion Piece by Dr. Judy Monroe Highlights Historic Success and Future Challenges to Public Health
Innovation and a commitment to protect the public’s health has had a profound impact on the world’s health in the last century, doubling life expectancy and improving lives through advancements in clean water and sanitation to innovations in vaccines and reductions to infant mortality. But new health threats, from the current COVID-19 pandemic to the future health impacts of climate change, will require a redoubling of the successful public health approaches of the past and a new surge of support for the public health community to keep us all safe and healthy.
These were the key messages put forward by Judy Monroe, MD, president and CEO of the CDC Foundation, in an op-ed yesterday in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. In the op-ed, Dr. Monroe details the tremendous public health successes of the last century and also cites emerging threats impacting life expectancy–which declined in the United States from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.0 years in 2020—the largest decline since World War II.
“The reasons behind recent life expectancy declines are complex but familiar, such as increases in deaths due to opioids, suicides and alcohol-related causes,” Dr. Monroe said in the op-ed. “But there are other contributors. For instance, there’s been an increase in cardiovascular-related deaths after a 50-year decline and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The pandemic cast a new light on the impact of decades of government underinvestment in public health protection, and sparked a critical influx of new funding to modernize the nation’s public health system and prepare it for future challenges. That effort, Dr. Monroe said, will require not only a myriad of cross-sectoral partnerships but also the active engagement of the U.S. population as a whole. She called on all of us to follow the guidance of public health officials, while encouraging our government officials to provide consistent funding to public health and not pass restrictive public health laws.
In her op-ed, Dr. Monroe also called on both employees and business owners to engage with local health departments to protect communities, and for all of us to counter misinformation on public health with accurate, science-based information and to encourage the next generation to take up the noble and lifesaving profession of public health.
“Today, and for tomorrow, we need to work together across the public and private sectors to rebuild a strong, trusted system to protect the public’s health, one able to rise to the enormous challenges to our health and economic well-being,” Dr. Monroe said. “Our lives—and our longevity—depend on it.”
