Monday, November 23, 2015
How Do You Build a Field? Lessons from Public Health - Rockefeller Foundation
The world cheered as Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola earlier this month. An army of courageous physicians, nurses, technicians, and lay care providers provided the medical care that limited the outbreak’s devastation. However, credit for containing the disease also goes to a legion of researchers, epidemiologists, community health workers, educators and others who led the public health response in West Africa and beyond.
We owe the existence of these professionals, and the knowledge they wield, to the field of public health. A century ago, that field barely existed. The concept that health could be promoted at the population level through better choices by communities, organizations, families, and individuals was still new. . .