Public Health: Hidden in Vein Sight

Following a day full of hands-on skills, guest speaker Abigail Corrao spoke with interns about public health and its massive presence in our everyday lives. She started with a foundational definition of public health, explaining how it works to protect and improve the health of people and their communities. With this in mind, she asked interns to identify the public health factors hiding in plain sight around them. She then presented a slide showcasing a wide variety of public health professionals, noting that most of the interns would actually go into public health in some capacity during their careers. From social workers and nutritionists to policymakers and even restaurant inspectors, Corrao highlighted the diverse and unexpected ways that public health operates in our daily routines.

Panning next to the social determinants of health, Corrao opened up an interactive discussion with interns to talk about the different ways that non-clinical factors impact an individual's health. Interns pointed out economic challenges and the heavy influence of one’s social circle. Working in pairs, they even devised roleplay scenarios acting as doctors and patients to demonstrate real-world situations where these social determinants directly alter a patient's well-being and access to care.

Following this discussion, she broke down the 10 essential public health services, emphasizing that equity sits at the very center of all these practices. She referenced this list to characterize the exact efforts public health professionals rely on in order to care for a community. “While you may be treating one person, that is one person in a network of people,” she reminded the room, highlighting the interconnected nature of medicine. 

Lastly, Corrao talked about the power of advocacy. Recognizing that politics and public health are deeply intertwined, she left the interns with an inspiring call to action, encouraging them to use their voices both now and in their future lines of work. She quoted the American Public Health Association, which says that “Being an advocate can have far-reaching positive impacts on the public’s health by providing policymakers with the information they need to make decisions, and in turn, influence legislation.”