Political analyst Heather McGhee discusses the impact of racism, a topic that had a recurring role during APHA 2021 discussions.
Photo courtesy EZ Event Photography
Nearly two years into a pandemic marked by isolation, division and loss, APHA helped foster connections and build strength among the public health workforce in October.
APHA’s 2021 Annual Meeting and Expo, held online and in Denver, brought together thousands of public health workers online and in-person under an umbrella of social connectedness. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased feelings of stress, depression and burnout among many Americans, including those who are working to combat the disease. With more than 700,000 U.S. lives lost, there are more repercussions yet to be felt, according to former APHA President Lisa Carlson, MPH.
“The grief crisis is a mental health crisis, and I would argue it’s the next public health crisis,” Carlson said during the meeting’s opening session.
APHA 2021 welcomed about 10,000 public health practitioners, students, advocates, scientists, educators and supporters, most of whom attended virtually. In-person attendees took special care to protect themselves and others during the ongoing pandemic, following state and local health recommendations for vaccination, masking, distancing and more.
David Satcher, former U.S. surgeon general and founder of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute, speaks about equity.
Photo courtesy EZ Event Photography
Participants gathered around the meeting theme of “Creating the Healthiest Nation: Strengthening Social Connectedness,” which was the focus of many of the meeting’s hundreds of scientific sessions. Research presented during the four-day meeting, which took place Oct. 24-27, also covered the gamut of public health disciplines and priorities, from nutrition and housing to violence prevention and health inequities.
Racism — a key social determinant of health that hundreds of U.S. communities have declared as a public health crisis — was another topic that permeated conversations at APHA 2021. Political commentator and analyst Heather McGhee, JD, discussed how racism keeps the entire nation from reaching its full potential during her opening session keynote.
As an example of the way racism affects the larger community, she detailed the history of the Oak Park public swimming pool in Montgomery, Alabama. When desegregation began in the 1950s and ’60s, the Oak Park pool, like so many others, was closed. Rather than share the pool with Black residents, the city drained the pool, filled it with dirt and covered it with grass, preventing everyone in the community from benefiting from it. McGhee said that slice of history helped her understand why U.S. inequality continues to widen and why the U.S. lags so far behind its rich peers on issues such as affordable health and child care and universal early childhood education.
Abdul El-Sayed, host of “America Dissected,” recorded an episode of the podcast series live during APHA 2021.
Photo courtesy EZ Event Photography
“Racism is the core dysfunction of our society, and it has a cost for everyone,” said McGhee, who is the best-selling author of “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.”
The future of public health — particularly in the aftermath of COVID-19 — was discussed at length during the APHA Annual Meeting. The politicization of vaccines and the spread of misinformation about public health must be addressed, according to William Foege, MD, MPH, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who helped eradicate smallpox.
Foege called on public health professionals to stand up for science and present it as common sense, combine science and art to reach more people, and provide a moral compass.
“I hope all of you in public health are secure in the knowledge of what you are doing,” Foege said during an APHA 2021 featured session. “It’s a profession that does not reward you financially, and it usually does not even thank you. But if you can be secure in the knowledge of what you are doing, that is important.”
To be ready for future public health threats, the U.S. needs to invest in growing a skilled, diverse public health workforce, according to Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, current CDC director. The nation must also modernize its data and computer systems and improve laboratory capacity, she said.
APHA 2021 speakers present both virtually and in Denver during a featured session on the state of public health.
Photo courtesy EZ Event Photography
“We came into this pandemic with a frail national public health system, and we need to be in a better place after this pandemic than we were when it started,” Walensky said during her virtual presentation at APHA 2021.
Restrictive timelines for spending public health funding present a barrier to flexibility, said Nirav Shah, MD, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Right now, the concern that many folks have articulated is that we’ve got so much funding and so much pressure to spend it quickly, if we spend it improperly, we weaken the case for having that funding sustainable over the long term,” Shah said at APHA 2021.
At the center of creating a stronger public health system is achieving health equity, said David Satcher, MD, PhD, who closed out the Annual Meeting on Oct. 27. Satcher, a former U.S. surgeon general and founder of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, illustrated the importance of equity with stark numbers from a 2005 study he co-authored on the mortality gap between Black and white people in 1960 and 2000. If the gap had been eliminated, the study found, more than 83,500 Black lives could have been saved.
“The goal of equity is not something to take lightly,” Satcher said. “It means we can change the world, the way we live, the way that we relate to each other. We can reduce a lot of suffering.”
Annual Meeting participants stretch out during a free exercise session in Denver.
Photo courtesy EZ Event Photography
“The goal of equity is not something to take lightly. It means we can change the world, the way we live, the way that we relate to each other. We can reduce a lot of suffering.”
— David Satcher
Attendees learn, connect, celebrate
Beyond the Annual Meeting’s hundreds of scientific sessions, participants had the opportunity to continue their professional development, connect with new and old colleagues, and browse booths at the annual Public Health Expo.
Hundreds of people took part in APHA’s Learning Institutes, held Oct. 23-24. The institutes were one of the ways APHA 2021 attendees were able to earn continuing education credits and boost their practical knowledge of public health.
Attendees had an opportunity to hone their social media skills at the fourth annual Sunset Tweetup. The Oct. 26 event generated 1,200 tweets about public health and earned 15 million impressions. Attendees who needed additional social media guidance picked up tips at the APHA Annual Meeting Social Media Lab, offered in partnership with JSI, which provided both group presentations and one-on-one in-depth consultations.
Nadine Gracia, MD, MSCE, speaks at APHA 2021 about the need for all sectors to address injustice and advance equity.
Photo courtesy EZ Event Photography
Attendees could keep up with daily news coverage from the APHA Annual Meeting Blog and interviews with leaders in the field on APHA TV, episodes of which can be viewed on APHA’s YouTube channel. Web users can also listen to an episode of Crooked Media’s popular “America Dissected” podcast on public health communication lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was recorded live at APHA 2021.
“The work that we must do has to engage with the lessons of this moment,” said podcast host Abdul El-Sayed, MD, a physician and epidemiologist, during the taping.
Planning has begun for APHA’s 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo, which will be held in Boston in November under a theme of “150 Years of Creating the Healthiest Nation: Leading the Path Toward Equity.” Abstract submissions for APHA 2022 open Feb. 1.
For more information on APHA 2021, including on-demand access to session recordings, visit
www.apha.org/annualmeeting. For more coverage from APHA 2021, read the Annual Meeting Blog at www.publichealthnewswire.org.
Melanie Padgett Powers contributed to this story, portions of which were published on the Annual Meeting Blog.
Maureen Lichtveld, MD, MPH, speaks at an Annual Meeting featured session on disasters and community connection.
Photo courtesy EZ Event Photography
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
