NPHW celebrations highlight importance of public health: Communities support healthier future
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* Lindsey Wahowiak

Throughout 2018’s National Public Health Week, public health advocates and allies across the country went the distance to celebrate public health successes, highlight strengths and focus on the future.

NPHW, held April 2-8, saw hundreds of events nationwide, bringing together health workers and advocates with their communities. For more than 20 years, APHA has been the organizer of NPHW, the first full week in April, in which public health departments, schools, students and leaders recognize the contributions of public health and highlight issues that matter most when it comes to the nation’s health.

This year’s events looked forward, with a theme of “Healthiest Nation 2030: Changing Our Future Together.” More than 500 partners joined APHA in leading the way for NPHW. Nearly 300 events were shared on APHA’s national calendar, and were supported by 14 fact sheets and three toolkits, all of which are available at [www.nphw.org](http://www.nphw.org).

APHA led the way throughout NPHW, highlighting ways the U.S. could work to become the healthiest nation in a generation.

NPHW kicked off with a forum on April 2 at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C. There, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, MD, MPH, gave a keynote address in which he noted the uphill battle public health advocates are fighting, but pointed out there is much to be happy about and proud of. Adams said that although American life expectancy has dropped for the last two years, public health can do a lot to turn the tide.

“Yes, we need more funding,” Adams said. “We need medical expertise. We need to be grounded in science. (But) we can have a tremendous impact if we focus less on what we don’t have, and focus on better engaging partners. Potential exists in every single community in our country.”

The forum highlighted some of that potential, as APHA President Joseph Telfair, DrPH, MPH, MSW, moderated a conversation with Wendy Ellis, MPH, project director of the Building Community Resilience program at the George Washington University; Jen Luettel Schweer, MA, LPC, director of Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Services at Georgetown University; Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, JD, director of health equity at Families USA; and Alyse Sabina, MPH, national program director at the Aetna Foundation.

During the forum conversation, issues of messaging and health equity took the forefront. Hernández-Cancio highlighted the importance of community health workers, as they know and understand communities and what is happening with their health intimately. It is community health workers’ efforts that showed life expectancy is increasing for all Hispanics and for black men, she said. White women’s life expectancy is decreasing, due in part to an uptick in diseases of despair.

Resilience also stayed at the forefront of the forum. Ellis noted that communities with worse social determinants of health often bear the brunt before, during and after disasters.

“I am not applying a term which comes from physics to the human spirit,” Ellis said of resilience. “It’s really talking about an ability for an object to retain shape after a shock. We are not merely wanting communities to bounce back to what we know are already levels of inequity.”

A recording of the forum, which was also broadcast on C-SPAN, is available online at [www.nphw.org](http://www.nphw.org).

Issues of health equity also took center stage during the annual NPHW Twitter Chat, held April 4. During the hourlong chat, about 650 chat participants sent nearly 3,500 tweets, sending the #NPHWchat hashtag trending to the No. 2 slot nationwide. The Twitter chat also garnered 73 million impressions.

![Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/48/4/1.3/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/48/4/1.3/F1)

APHA’s National Public Health Week Forum was held April 2 in Washington, D.C., and featured a keynote address by U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams and a panel of health experts.

Photo by David Fouse

“The chat is always a highlight of NPHW,” said Melissa McNeily, MS, director of Affiliate affairs and APHA’s NPHW organizer. “It’s an amazing way for people all over the country to come together, share what they’re doing in their communities and talk about the present and future of public health. This year’s chat showed that both are bright.”

Also online, APHA and the Environmental Health Coalition teamed up for an April 3 webinar exploring safe drinking water, healthy housing and clean air as outlined in the National Environmental Health Partnership Council’s “Environmental Health Playbook: Investing in a Robust Environmental Health System.”

On Capitol Hill, NPHW was noted as well. On March 22, Congressional Public Health Caucus Co-Chairs Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif.; Rep. Kay Granger, D-Texas; Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas; Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.; and Rob Wittman, R-Va., introduced H.R. 805, a resolution “supporting the goals and ideals of National Public Health Week.” On April 12, Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., introduced a companion bill, S.R. 462, in the Senate.

APHA also took to the Hill on April 5 with a briefing on gun violence co-hosted by the American Psychological Association. APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, led a conversation with leading gun violence experts to explore what can be done to stem the growing problem of firearm-related injuries and deaths in the U.S. David Hemenway, PhD, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center; Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD, former chair of APA’s Gun Violence Prevention Task Force; and Nancy LaVigne, PhD, vice president for justice policy at the Urban Institute, served on the panel. Hemenway, considered the foremost expert on gun violence in the U.S., noted that gun violence will not be prevented without thorough research — which has been thwarted by congressional efforts to keep federal funding from it.

Though public health faces challenges, Benjamin noted the week was cause for celebration as well.

“Once again, the public health community has come together to lead the way in making the U.S. a healthy, thriving nation,” Benjamin told *The Nation’s Health.* “Despite roadblocks, ours is a community that delivers care and support for everyone. NPHW is a culmination of those efforts.”

National Public Health Week 2019 will be held April 1-7.

For more on NPHW, visit [www.nphw.org](http://www.nphw.org).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association