Woodson Keynote Webinar Series, featuring Dr. Sten Vermund

Sten H. Vermund, MD, PhD, is Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. He is a pediatrician and infectious disease epidemiologist focused on diseases of low and middle-income countries, and on health disparities in the U.S. Recent work has included COVID-19 control and prevention and helping capacitate the new National Institute of Public Health in Chad. Dr. Vermund is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the AAAS. Prior to joining Yale in 2017, Dr. Vermund worked for 29 years south of the Mason-Dixon line at NIH, UAB, and Vanderbilt.
TITLE: COVID-19: PUBLIC HEALTH ACTION IN A PARTISAN ENVIRONMENT
Public health can be controversial when vested commercial interests clash with health and wellness, as the environmental health community knows all too well. Many were surprised, however, when COVID-19 became a partisan issue, from stay-to-home orders to masks to vaccines. Dr. Vermund will discuss his own experiences as an infectious disease epidemiologist and pediatrician, will review the historical roots of this conflict, and propose strategies for mitigating the harm that is wrought from public policies that are incoherent or antithetical to disease control and prevention. He will invite debate and alternative points of view.