Advancing Public Health and Preventive Medicine

ABSTRACT

Largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States experienced a decrease in life expectancy from 2019 to 2020, with a disproportionate burden among Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black populations.1 COVID-19 has also illustrated and continues to show the "fault lines" in public health, including inadequate surveillance systems, underfunding of public health and primary care, structural inequities, misand disinformation, and the intrusion of partisan politics into public health practice.2,3 In addressing the many opportunities and challenges for public health and preventive medicine, Matthew Boulton and Robert Wallace have assembled an impressive set of 186 chapters across 11 sections, authored by world-class experts on each topic. Global Health, Health Disparities & Vulnerable Populations, Nutrition & Physical Activity, and Mental Health & Substance Use. Across the many sections and chapters in this book, competencies can be mapped to academic course work, clinical rotations, short courses, practica, and on-the-job training programs for professionals in public health and preventive medicine.8,9 IMPLEMENTING KNOWN SOLUTIONS As described in multiple chapters, but particularly in the chapter on implementation science, the decades of scientific progress in medicine and public health have too often not been translated into equitable improvements in population health.10 By influencing how scientific evidence is scaled up into practice, implementation science has great potential to accelerate progress toward achieving public health goals by seeking to understand and influence how scientific evidence is put into practice.11 Evidence in multiple forms, but particularly evidence-based interventions, is the foundation of implementation science and progress in public health.12 FOCUSING ON HEALTH EQUITY Concepts of health disparities and health equity are more prominently featured in this new edition, across many chapters but particularly in section 3 on health disparities and vulnerable populations.