It has been a remarkable few days filled with extraordinary presentations at Preventive Medicine 2022. I am looking forward to seeing how these new innovations will shape the future of the preventive medicine profession.
One of the great challenges the public health community has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis of communication. We kicked off today with a discussion where expert panelists shared their stories and strategies for successful communications efforts
How can physicians build trust, communicate clearly and keep their communities informed in the face of rapidly shifting understanding around disease and the influx of misinformation?
Board of Regents Member, Dr. Chris Pernell, highlighted one significant and ongoing problem in the pandemic – misinformation. With so much misleading noise circulating in the media, misinformation can get ahead of the truth, so we must communicate often and with certainty to provide people with the scientific evidence from credible voices they seek.
Another pressing issue affecting our communities is health equity. Many of the concurrent sessions held today addressed the growing challenges of health equity across communities. It is an unfortunate reality that disparities in disease prevalence and outcomes across race and other demographic factors continue to be a major issue for public health. However, it was inspiring to hear some of the focused efforts to identify and improve quality of life and wellbeing underway.
We closed the third day of the conference with a panel discussion on the intersection of business and medicine – and how skills in business administration can help guide and inform public health priorities and build on the skills of preventive medicine leaders.
We hope that these sessions help highlight the important role preventive medicine physicians play and that we inspire our residents, the future of our field, to actively communicate and get involved across communities and in the conversation to advance public health efforts.
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