“Public health doesn’t meet people where they are at; it enables them to move freely by altering their environment to facilitate risk-reducing behaviors…”

Reflections on an article that was published in The Nation titled, “Want to Fix Public Health? Stop Thinking Like a Doctor. Public health requires seeing the world from a collective perspective, but US agencies are still dominated by doctors trained to work on an individual level.” by Eric Reinhart.

This article resonated with me.

The root of public health which is that we bring about change in the systems and environments in which we all live by focusing on the population level strategies that change systems. This is different from a more clinical approach that prioritizes the needs of individuals and develops strategies to meet those needs. There is not a value judgement or an “either/or” situation, instead we have a clear vision for public health that if we are going to meet our goals of reducing health disparities we must change the systems and environments in which those injustices are created and perpetuated.

This message resonates with me as I consider the difference between community outreach and true community engagement. It is important to conduct outreach to individuals and to provide them with the resources that they need as part of a comprehensive outreach strategy, but that will not reach our goal of systems change to create healthier environments. It is much more impactful to undertake true community engagement that is co-created with community partners. Community engagement that seeks to shift power and influence to community members as part of our work. I use the influences of community engagement in my work in public health and I feel that the field should embrace the tools of true community engagement as part of our work.

The call to action at the end of the article is for public health to be ‘political, but not partisan’. So often in local government and otherwise, public health leaders shy away from politics in an effort to remain non-partisan. This author challenges that assumption that public health cannot be political. By its nature, what we do is political and if we shy away from the political nature of the work then we loose our ability to effect change. I take this as a clear call to action to lean into opportunities to lend my voice to politics as a non-partisan advocate for systems and policy changes that will address injustice and create health disparities in our communities.