Healthy You

There is a threat to America’s public health that is as insidious as the spread of COVID. It runs through social media.  It surfaces in cable news, podcasts, newspapers - and even in the public statements of elected officials and health professionals.

In this concluding episode of the series, we hear from the experts about tangible, workable, scalable solutions to our disease of disinformation..  

There is a threat to America’s public health that is as insidious as the spread of COVID. It runs through social media.  It surfaces in cable news, podcasts, newspapers - and even in the public statements of elected officials and health professionals.

In this episode we consider the impact of mis and disinformation. We talk to a woman whose father got Covid after hearing that it was safe to go out. And we discuss the rapid erosion of trust in science, medicine, and public health.

In this special podcast series we hear from people whose lives have been forever changed by Covid disinformation. And we look at what can be done to turn the tide. In this episode - who is responsible for spreading the lies?  And how can they be held accountable?  

This disease of disinformation causes confusion, sickness, even death.  And no one seems to be able to stop it.  It is a pandemic in its own right.

Today we are going to look at what disinformation is, where it's coming from and how to hold those responsible accountable.

Many states are relaxing mask mandates and rethinking pandemic era restrictions. Today on the podcast we recalibrate for the new normal: relaxed workplace rules, and changes to masking in schools, airports and restaurants. What do public health officials make of all this? We check in with Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of  the American Public Health Association and Dr. Lynn Goldman, Dean of the Milken Institute of the GWU School of Public Health.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the pandemic it’s that,  just when we think when we’re out of the woods, it throws us for or a loop. Today we talk to Dr. Catherine Troisi, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston.  Professor Troisi shares with us her perspective on the Omicron surge in Texas and its effects on hospitals, schools and health workers across the state.  

As the pandemic enters its third year, we consider the possibility that we will be living with the Covid-19 virus indefinitely. Today on the podcast host Frank Sesno talks to Dr. David Michaels, an epidemiologist and professor at  George Washington University’s Milken School of Public Health. He is also one of the longest serving heads of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Michaels and five other experts who advised Biden’s transition team, have called on President Biden to adopt an entirely new domestic pandemic strategy geared to better prepare us for what comes next.

“Public health saved your life today, you just don’t know it,” That was the original title Dr. Leana Wen gave the book she wrote about her career as the Health Commissioner in Baltimore, Maryland. But when Covid 19 hit, Wen rewrote it and turned it into a personal story about public health, visible only when it is underfunded, ignored and laid bare by the devastation of Covid 19. On the next Healthy You: Surviving a Pandemic host Frank Sesno talks to Dr. Leana Wen about her book, “Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health.”

We’ve seen so many important advances in our fight against Covid in 2021. And yet it is impossible to forget the struggle and the anguish over so many lives lost. In this episode of Healthy You – Surviving a Pandemic, host Frank Sesno talks to Lauren Weber, Midwest Correspondent for Kaiser Health News. Lauren shares her perspective on the pandemic from Missouri, a state she describes as having some of the worst public health infrastructure in the nation.

There’s a dedicated group of health professionals that are exhausted and overwhelmed and working harder than ever before: school nurses. Since Covid hit they have been dealing with an array of new issues, from contact tracing, to administering virus tests to helping children who are suffering the stress of the Pandemic. In this episode of Healthy You we meet Gloria Barrera.  She is a certified school nurse for a public high school in Illinois and President of the Illinois Nurses Association.  She has also recently been honored with a 40 under 40 award from the de Beaumont foundation.