HSPH CLASS DAY

Importance of Public Health Celebrated

Public health is at the threshold of a new era, said Dean Julio Frenk at the HSPH commencement ceremony on Class Day, June 4. The landscape of public health has changed radically, he said. It is now fundamentally global, and there is an increasing emphasis on ­integration—across ­disciplines and levels of analysis from gene to globe.

“Global” is not the opposite of “domestic,” said Frenk. Global refers to processes that affect every population in the world through our growing interdependence. While we pursue the highest standards of academic rigor, we must at the same time provide solutions to the most pressing health challenges.

Photo by Kent Dayton

In addressing the crowd at the HSPH Class Day ceremony, public health dean Julio Frenk (left) and keynote speaker Atul Gawande emphasized the transformative power of public health.

As this year’s graduates carry forth the School’s mission in their own careers, Frenk said, this next generation of public health leaders must focus on turning knowledge into evidence that can guide practice.

“Knowledge—the fundamental product of ­universities—is truly the most potent lever to improve our world,” said Frenk. “With an evidence base and an ethical underpinning, public health interventions are a powerful force for enlightened social transformation.”

The commencement address was delivered by author Atul Gawande, an associate professor at HSPH and an HMS associate professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Gawande described how different healthcare systems struggle with increasingly complex problems. He recounted visiting a hospital in his ancestral village in India, where he saw the heroic efforts of a few surgeons to accommodate the needs of rooms packed with patients, even giving patients chemotherapy.

He also described a case in Boston of a woman with a complex set of medical problems that arose because she did not get the preventive care she needed. Though a team of specialists went to great lengths to treat her, in the end she died of a simple pneumonia infection. “We, too, were struggling with a system that is failing our people,” Gawande said. Those working in public health, he said, will be the ones providing solutions to these failures.

Photo by Kent Dayton HSPH student speaker Hope O’Brien challenged the audience to consider the different avenues through which public health can lead to a “just and happy future.”

“The needs of our world have shifted in ways that alter our conception of public health,” Gawande said. “There’s been an explosion of complex needs like these as much of the world’s population lives past infectious disease. And so, consider my field of surgery. We now have 230 million people a year undergoing major surgery in the world. The volume now exceeds that of childbirth, but with death rates 10 to 100 times higher. And, on the other hand, we still have 2 billion people without access to essential surgery for endangered childbirth, for traumas, for other kinds of emergencies. If we are to save lives and use health resources wisely, we have to think about our health systems in all their dimensions—how they cope with everything from malaria to surgery. For we’ve generated tremendous scientific knowledge, but not the capacity to deliver on it reliably, safely, humanely or equitably. Closing this gap is the work of public health. It has become the pivotal struggle of our era.”

Hope O’Brien, the student speaker, said that she defines public health as “a more just and healthy future.” The path to that future may involve a host of different strategies depending on the location and needs of a community, from clean water to a campaign to remind people to wear seat belts or universal health insurance.

“This will be a very special class for me, my first commencement as dean,” Frenk said in his closing remarks. He asked graduates to take a moment to look around at their neighbors: “You may be sitting beside a future minister of health or someone who will discover or develop a solution to a centuries-old disease.” Finally, he urged the graduates to consider the School a place to which they can always return for consultation, support and fellowship.

The School granted degrees to 491 students: 16 Doctor of Philosophy degrees; two, Doctor of Public Health; 54, Doctor of Science; 13, Master of Arts; 278, Master of Public Health; and 128, Master of Science. Sixty countries, 39 states, and Puerto Rico were represented. Six out of every 10 members of the Class of 2009 are women.

A webcast of the program is available at www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/commencement-2009.

—Courtney Humphries

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