Lois Hall, Executive Director, Ohio Public Health Association
"Most people don't know the role that public health and research have in their daily lives, which is the paradox of public health at its best. When you exercise without getting injured, when you drive without getting in an accident, when you eat out without getting sick - means we were there first."
Lois Hall talks about one of their greatest contributions to public health from research thirty years ago, and overall one of the major achievements in children's health in response to an unexplained illness that was causing neurological complications, major illness and death.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded a study for several states to research and identify the cause behind mysterious complications occurring in children primarily after getting over an illness like the chicken pox or flu. Hall and the Ohio Public Health Association participated in this study, and were able to identify the link between children and the effect from the common pain reliever aspirin, a disease now known as Reye's Syndrome. This research discovery has had an enormous impact on lives saved and the prevention of serious health complications in children, the major medical costs saved, and the supporting evidence for the Food and Drug Administration to include warning labels which are still present today about the health effects from administering the drug to children.
Hall is worried, however, because of what many public health researchers and workers frequently deal with - the absence of an effect or impact, and in this case to serve as its own deterrent. "If public health works, then the public doesn't see us. And how do you illustrate the impact you have just had on someone's else when you have nothing to show them, because it is the ‘nothing' part you are striving for. Thus, while the link to Reye's Syndrome is my proudest achievement in my public health career, and the giant dent we made in the health of the nation, I am worried that, frankly, we did such a good job battling this complication that it is not widely-known, and what is old will be new again. This is another reason we need to support public health and invest in research in order to be sure the knowledge we have gained about health through time is clearly embedded in our communities and neighborhoods."
Hall's research has contributed to advances in other major diseases such as toxic shock syndrome, AIDS, and legionnaires disease, at a time when these were mysterious illnesses posing troubling symptoms. As Hall emphasized, the public health investment must support the research to learn the knowledge, and then the means to deliver the knowledge. Public health is not only the investment in knowledge to better health, but the means to communicate this knowledge as well. Public health and research encompasses community specific communications, warnings, education, interpretation of policy decisions in order to be sure the public is clear on the best way to achieve good health.
Hall thinks about public health 10 years down the road, and how to impact the public so they are more knowledgeable and educated about the role of public health. Hall thinks about a public that was so attuned to their health and the decisions being made that any public health decision or budget item could not go through without the public outcry for support. After all, "shouldn't public health be a no-brainer?"