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Through a series of bold, revelatory essays,
The Turning Point pushes the current public health conversation, leveraging the authors' experience as prominent health leaders to untangle the social, economic, environmental, and political forces at work in our communities. Combining cutting-edge data with philosophical insights, these essays encourage us to broaden and sharpen our vision of health and renegotiate policies that can allow health to flourish in extraordinary-and ordinary-times.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Preface
- Section 1. LESSONS
- 1. From Theory to Practice
- 2. Next Time, Testing First
- 3. The Irreplaceable Public Sector
- 4. Holding Our Breath
- 5. The Challenge of Addressing Multiple Crises
- 6. The Invisible Mental Health Burdens of a Pandemic
- 7. Pandemics and Prisons
- 8. The Necessity of Speaking with Care
- 9. Health Behavior
- 10. The Caring Infrastructure
- 11. Does Today Matter More Than Tomorrow?
- 12. Telling Different Stories with the Same Data
- 13. How Our Expectations Shape Our Perceptions of Reality
- 14. Can Contact Tracing Work Here?
- 15. Prescription Against Worry
- Section 2. STORY
- 16. Political Decisions and Science
- 17. Should We Be More Upset By This?
- 18. The Responsibility of Experts
- 19. Defining Our Goalposts
- 20. The Limits of Our Science
- 21. The National Character
- 22. The Right to Bear News
- 23. The Story of COVID-19
- 24. Why Did We Close Schools?
- 25. The Limits of Our Tolerance
- 26. Mismanaging Messages
- 27. The Vaccination Glass Half Full
- Section 3. ETHICS
- 28. Time for an Ethics Refresh?
- 29. Who Goes First?
- 30. What's Most Important?
- 31. Achieving Health Equity, Efficiently
- 32. The Long Shadow of Medical Racism
- 33. Health Inequities Beyond COVID-19
- 34. A Hard Weight
- 35. Mandating Vaccines
- 36. Leaving the World Behind
- 37. Digital Surveillance
- 38. Balancing Autonomy and Individual Responsibility
- 39. Profits and Profiteering
- Section 4. EMOTIONS
- 40. Grief and Loss
- 41. Recognizing and Moving Beyond Our Collective Grief
- 42. Epistemic Humility During a Global Pandemic
- 43. The Selling of Vaccines
- 44. Will We Stop Being Afraid?
- 45. Hope Dies Last
- 46. Can We Forget?
- 47. The Centrality of Compassion
- 48. False Confidence
- 49. A Tale of Volition
- 50. Trust and COVID-19
- Section 5. THE FUTURE
- 51. The New Us?
- 52. Who Decides?
- 53. Fixing Our Health System After COVID-19
- 54. HIV and COVID-19
- 55. Guns and the Unanticipated Consequences of COVID-19
- 56. Policies That Persist
- 57. The Invisible Work of Public Health
- 58. Will Better Public Health Funding Be Enough?
- 59. Chronic COVID
- 60. COVID-19 Collectivism
- 61. Can We Be Led?
- 62. COVID-19 and the Office
- 63. A COVID-19 Poverty Surprise
- 64. Is it Over Yet?
- 65. Now What?
- Sources
About the author
Michael D. Stein is Professor and Chair of Health Law, Policy and Management of the School of Public Health at Boston University. He is primary care doctor and has been a leader in general medicine and substance use research and policy for decades. He is Executive Editor of Public Health Post, a popular website on matters of population health. He is the author of award-winning novels and works of non-fiction. He has been interviewed by Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” and has been included in Best American Essays Notables.
Sandro Galea is Robert A Knox Professor and Dean of the School of Public Health at Boston University. He is a past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and of the Interdisciplinary Society for Population Health Science, past chair of the board of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Summary
In the early years of COVID-19, Americans witnessed the intersection of a global pandemic, an economic collapse, and civil unrest that galvanized the country and the world and ushered in an era of unprecedented disruption. Three years later, we can begin to reflect on the experience of the pandemic and ask ourselves how the lessons of that experience can inform a healthier present and future.
The Turning Point: Reflections on a Pandemic examines the first years of COVID-19 through the lens of population health, revealing a critical turning point in our engagement with key public health issues. Through a series of short, provocative essays, the authors leverage their experience as prominent public health leaders to untangle the social, economic, environmental, and political forces at work in our response to the pandemic. Combining cutting-edge data with philosophical insights, these bold and revelatory essays encourage us to broaden and sharpen our vision of health and renegotiate policies that can allow health to flourish in extraordinary-and ordinary-times.
Additional text
The Turning Point offers frank and thought-provoking reflections on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic from two of the nation's most prominent public health thought leaders. Stein and Galea's roadmap on how to prevent and respond to future epidemics should foster community resilience, putting the 'public' back in 'public health'. Written in an approachable style that should appeal to everyone, its essays should be required reading for public health students, policymakers and health journalists.
