Join Us in Showing Gratitude for Public Health Professionals

A public health professional may be one of the most important jobs, that is also the most misunderstood. What is public health and what does a public health professional do? Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities. The role of public health is vast—from disease prevention to improving the quality of life. This could be for heart disease, environmental health or an infectious disease, like COVID-19. And because of COVID-19, public health professionals are needed now more than ever.

Public health professionals are state, tribal, local and territorial public health department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) professionals who are working around the clock. They are the public health contact tracers, epidemiologists, data analysts, microbiologists, lab technicians, health communication experts and more. Since coronavirus was first discovered as a threat, these public health professionals have been frontline workers determining how to keep us safe in our communities.

Our public health professionals use science to advise our schools, businesses, and those at increased risk on how to prevent COVID-19 infection or spread. The scientists at CDC use data to determine if COVID-19 is spreading in certain communities, and how it is spreading. For example, they were able to survey outbreaks in places like senior living communities and overnight camps and provided guidelines on how to prevent future spread in similar locations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for all of us in different ways, but our public health professionals have not stopped searching for answers. They have worked tirelessly in labs, hospitals, and doing research to determine how to best protect our health—public health around the globe. Let’s take a moment to thank them and show our gratitude.

This week, our team is highlighting the critical and dedicated work of public health staff across the nation. To show your support, I encourage you to leave a note of thanks to the many public health staff who are working behind the scenes and on the front lines—all making an incredible impact during this global pandemic.

Join us in submitting a note of thanks: www.cdcfoundation.org/hero.