In a recent podcast from Partnership for Prevention, Dr. David Williams, Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, discusses the work of the Commission to Build a
Healthier America. Williams discusses what makes Americans healthy and what we can do to improve public health in the United States. He identifies two take
home messages from the Commission that are relevant to our work with HEAT. First, all Americans could be healthier than they are. This is important because it reminds us that health equity matters for everyone, not just people in disadvantaged groups. Second, as Williams puts it, “Good health is not created in doctors’ offices and hospitals.” Williams describes our health care system as a repair shop; we need to focus on what causes people to get sick in the first
place. It follows that we need to broaden the current debate about health care
reform to include a focus on how the social environment shapes health and drives
up health care costs.Tune in to Prevention Matters for the full podcast.
Thank you thank you thank you! I am so glad that people are starting to talk about health outside of insurance. Thanks for pointing me toward that podcast-- we've got to shift the debate away from simply access to clinics but to how individuals are set up to have good or bad health.
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