Making the Public’s Health a National Priority
Next week, thousands of public health professionals will gather for the APHA’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Expo, which centers on the theme “Making the Public’s Health a National Priority.” This year’s meeting comes at a pivotal moment for our nation. Life expectancies have been declining since before the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the need to prioritize public health. Research has shown that public health efforts to prevent disease are more cost-effective—and humane —than treating chronic health conditions, so now is the time to invest in our nation’s health.
To do so we need to prepare for the next pandemic, improve data collection to track and analyze diseases, conduct research on effective prevention and treatment methods and enact policies that promote better health for all people in all communities. Health is a human right; let’s make it a national priority.
Prepare for the Next Pandemic
It’s not if another pandemic will happen–it’s when. Challenges characterizing the U.S. public health response to COVID-19 underscore the need to prepare for the next pandemic, and the time is now. Yet, dramatic cuts in federal programs and funding, disillusionment in medicine and public health, and diminished trust in public health and government, pose major threats to progress on the kind of transformative change that is needed. More than five years since the first COVID-19 case, sustained investment in public health infrastructure and key actions for pandemic preparedness must still be moved forward.
How do we make pandemic preparedness a national priority? In an interview for NPR, Lauren Sauer, an expert on pandemic preparedness at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, emphasizes the need to build public trust: “People have to participate in public health, right? The public is the most important part. Unless we really spend a lot of time building the trust in public health back, we could build all the systems in the world, and they won’t work.”
So, how do we do it? By working together to overcome barriers to trust. Building trust requires humility, empathy, and accountability. It means meeting communities where they are, showing up as authentic partners, listening deeply, co-leading, engaging trusted messengers, and communicating transparently to counter misinformation. Building trust can set us on a path toward pandemic preparedness.
Improve Data Collection to Track and Analyze Diseases
Data help us see the world around us. In public health, data help us detect disease cases, understand health status and needs, make timely and informed decisions, and guide disease control and health promotion. COVID-19 highlighted the need to invest in modern data systems and reduce fragmentation; improve demographic data collection and reporting to reduce disparities and target investments; expand and skill up the workforce; and ensure data reporting and interpretation retain high ethical and epidemiological standards.
Yet, the erosion of federal data on race, ethnicity, and other key demographics, growing gaps in transparency, and weakening accountability mechanisms pose major threats to advancing equitable, evidence-based action to protect and improve the public’s health.
How do we change course and make improving public health data a national priority? We act together to protect and modernize data, uphold scientific integrity, strengthen cross-sector partnerships to collect and use information, and build transparency and trust while countering misinformation—ensuring that reliable, evidence-based data continues to guide decisions and safeguard the public’s health.
Conduct Research on Effective Prevention and Treatment Methods
Research helps us understand what works—and why. Studies on health outcomes, populations, and the social, economic, environmental, and behavioral factors that shape them provide the evidence we need to make sound decisions that improve the public’s health. By generating insights into prevention, treatment, and long-term health outcomes, research enables us to design interventions that are more effective, efficient, and equitable.
But, research can only achieve its potential to improve the public’s health when it is robust, applied, and translated into practice. Unfortunately, recent cuts, the restructuring of federal research funding, and cancellation of many ongoing research projects threaten to undermine progress.
How do we make high-impact research a national priority? We advocate for sustained investment in science, shape research agendas that reflect community needs, translate evidence into action, and promote community-based and participatory methods. Together, we can ensure that research serves as a bridge—connecting discovery to impact and knowledge to better health outcomes for everyone.
Enact Policies that Promote Better Health for All People in All Communities
Health is shaped by social, economic, environmental, and behavioral factors—many of which can be improved through policy. Policy is among the most powerful and enduring tools for improving health. It can set standards, requirements, and mandates that make communities safer, healthier, and more equitable, while securing long-term funding and programs that support health.
Yet progress toward sound, evidence-based policy is undermined by political polarization, short-term thinking, and efforts to roll back the authorities and regulations that protect health and safety. Without bold advocacy and thoughtful leadership, policies that prevent disease, reduce disparities, and promote well-being risk being neglected, underfunded, or dismantled.
How do we make policy to improve public health a national priority? We advocate for policies to ensure vital community conditions for health and well-being for all. We speak out against policies that harm individuals, communities, or the institutions responsible for safeguarding the public’s health. We collaborate to write, analyze, and evaluate policies, ensuring they reflect both scientific evidence and community voices. And we work to embed health into public decision-making—so that every law, budget, and regulation moves us closer to a future in which all people in all communities thrive.