Public Health and the Public Agenda

[...]In the time that I have been at Health andHuman Services, one of the things I have learned is thatthe public health profession has quite a lot to teach policymakers.That is something many New Yorkers learnedearlier this decade when Dr. Margaret Hamburg was NewYork City’s health commissioner. Faced with a seriousoutbreak of tuberculosis, she organized a multiprongedeffort aimed at prevention, treatment, and long-termcare. It was an effort that involved not only mobilizinghealth care providers in the field, but also policymakersin New York City, Albany, and Washington. And it was asuccess. Dr. Hamburg’s accomplishment was all aboutmaking the right diagnoses, and carrying out the rightplan of action.[...]