Tag: field of public health
Actually, Public Health Did a Remarkably Good Job With the Pandemic
When caring for two toddlers during the pandemic felt impossible, I took solace in knowing that raising children used to be considerably more difficult. During the early 20th century, infectious organisms in tainted food or fetid water exacted a frightening toll on children; in some places, up to 30 percent died before their first birthday. In those days, there was often little more to offer children suffering from dehydration and diarrhea than milk teeming with harmful bacteria or so-called
How Public Health Took Part in Its Own Downfall
There was a time, at the start of the 20th century, when the field of public health was stronger and more ambitious. A mixed group of physicians, scientists, industrialists, and social activists all saw themselves “as part of this giant social-reform effort that was going to transform the health of the nation,” David Rosner, a public-health historian at Columbia University, told me. They were united by a simple yet radical notion: that some people were more susceptible to disease because