Harvard School of Public Health Celebrates Centennial

As part of its 100th anniversary celebration, the Harvard School of Public Health hosted the Centennial Leadership Summit on Friday, bringing together public health academics and advocates for a day of discussion.

The summit focused on aligning the educational and research missions of the school towards  four major threats to global health: old and new pandemics, harmful physical and social environments, poverty and humanitarian crises, and failing health systems.

Julio Frenk, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, formally opened the event by looking forward to the next century of innovative development. Six small group discussions featuring experts in a range of fields followed, including one focused on failing health systems.

“You need to look at the surgeon who is about to make the incision and the minister of health who is making the systems decisions,” said Ashish Jha, a health policy professor at the School of Public Health. “I think a big part of improving care is about training leadership and giving them the tools to identify what is high quality health-care.”

Afternoon panel sessions featured discussions with ministerial-level leaders in health policy from the United States and abroad, all of whom varied in their unique paths to the field of public health.

“Some people came to this field to make a large-scale impact while others had an experience with a patient and knew that they were on the wrong side of the intervention,” said Harvey V. Fineberg ’67, the president of the Institute of Medicine and moderator for the afternoon. “These are what draw people to public health and this is what has brought us together.”

While some panelists highlighted specific technical problems in the healthcare system, others reflected on the prevailing trends in the field.

“We tend to approach public health quite ideologically, where everyone needs to ride behind it and act in a certain way,” Kelechi Ohiri, an advisor to the ministry of health in Nigeria, said. “The real world doesn’t work that way and we need to realize that but avoid being jaded or cynical.”

In line with the general theme of “responsibility” during the discussions, Howard Koh, the U.S. assistant secretary for health for the Department of Health and Human Services, said he first realized he had to do something about public health problems while in medical school.

“The attending [physician] would always end by saying, ‘You know, this is all due to tobacco; someone should do something about that,’” Koh said. “And I remember leaving asking who that would be. That is what started my career in public health.”

Pradit Sintavanarong, the minister of Public Health of Thailand, reflected upon the importance of the panel as part of the larger Centennial Celebration.

“Maybe government is not the place for some of the people to talk directly or openly because of the politics, but academia is a special place where people come with an open mind,” Sintavanarong said. “I think Harvard University can play a very important role.”

—Staff writer Fatima N. Mirza can be reached at fatima.mirza@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @fatimanmirza.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: Nov. 4, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of Kelechi Ohiri, an advisor to the minister of health in Nigeria.