The COVID-19 pandemic has put the field of public health on center-stage. For over a century, public health practitioners have been strongly suggesting that public health is integrated into all aspects of our society. Even before this current pandemic, in the past decade alone, we’ve seen deadly outbreaks of Ebola, MERS, and measles, as well as unpredictable and recurring influenza pandemics. Like all fields of healthcare, the field of public health must also continue to innovate. To be effective, public health must embrace change, must embrace progress, and must adopt new approaches as novel viruses emerge.
 
As is evidenced by the response to the current pandemic, we’ve learned that the U.S. has major gaps to fill in its public health infrastructure and its workforce. COVID-19 revealed vulnerabilities across the board that must be re-imagined in a way that makes them proactive, not reactive. These changes must happen now if we are to be better prepared for future crises.
 
Researchers, policymakers, academics, and public health advocates alike must analyze where we went wrong and try learning from those shortfalls. At its core, public health is interdisciplinary, and the most effective approaches involve collaboration. One promising method that I believe deserves greater public awareness is a “systems approach” to public health.
 
A systems approach recognizes the interrelated physical, social, and economic factors – known as the social determinants of health – that shape our lives. This type of approach would allow us to better assess the unique needs of communities as we develop more effective interventions and conduct research, looking at the “big picture” of how our social institutions function and influence health. A systems approach would, for example, consider individual barriers like English language skills and medical mistrust, as well as structural barriers influencing access to health resources, such as poverty, healthcare personnel shortages, and lack of reliable transportation to local healthcare facilities. It would, for instance, demonstrate the association between the green space on a given campus and the impacts on health and health behaviors.
 
Unlike traditional approaches, the systems approach emphasizes the need for cross-disciplinary partnerships. Imagine the impact public health efforts would have if different industries – academic, business, healthcare, and more – pulled their resources and expertise together to reduce the global burden of disease. Such an enterprise would allow for, say, surveillance in real-time, aggregated data, and advanced translational health informatics. It would pave the way for a more sustainable, on-demand public health response.
 
Our future – and the health and well-being of future generations – is dependent on a multi-pronged, cross-sector, and collaborative effort. With more than 600,000 COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. alone, a systems-based approach could revolutionize pandemic planning and preparedness, promote resiliency, and protect against the catastrophic loss of life that we are seeing right now.
 

Are you in need of COVID-19 antibody surveillance testing for your research study – all through the convenient collection of saliva?
 
A cost-effective service is offered right here on campus through the UCI Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research. This assay can be used to support research studies to investigate seroprevalence and incidence related to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 infection. The easy-to-collect, non-invasive nature of saliva sampling facilitates the identification of prior COVID-19 exposure, enabling seroprevalence research studies to occur at a population-based level. To get your project started, click here.

Please join us in welcoming the second Public Health Alumni Chapter Board. As they grow into their roles, board members will take the Program in Public Health's alumni chapter to the next level through key initiatives, including those with our graduate and undergraduate student liaisons and regional event network chair.