Although classrooms at ETSU remained cold and vacant for much of Tuesday, that evening at the Carnegie Hotel, a large crowd of ETSU faculty, students and community members welcomed Dr. David Williams, the Norman Professor of Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, the director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America, and a leading authority on the socioeconomic and racial influences and disparities in health as he spoke about our nation’s health. Williams’ lecture, “Building a Healthier America,” is the third in a series of lectures, Leading Voices in Public Health, sponsored by the ETSU College of Public Health, the Public Health Student Association and the Office of Rural and Community Health.
Accompanying Williams were members of the Commission to Build a Healthier America, including Sen. Bill Frist. Recognizing that the United States spends half of the world’s medical resources, yet has one of the lowest life expectancies of developed nations and one of the highest rates of infant mortality, the Commission was launched on Feb. 28, 2008 to complete a year-long study with the charge of addressing key health issues facing the United States outside the scope of the health care system, including why some Americans are healthier than others and why the United States is unhealthier than many developed countries.
It is comprised of several of our nation’s leading authorities on topics of: policy, health, business and education and includes professors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, news anchors and college presidents. Williams was introduced by Frist, former Senate Majority Leader, who now works at both the national and international level with initiatives to promote healthier communities and individuals.
Focusing on issues of health and not primarily health care, Williams began the lecture by stating that the life expectancy of an individual in the United States could vary by as much as 20 years depending on where the individual lives and their ethnicity.
He gave the illustration of a map of the New York subway system and showed that life expectancies varied by subway route.
The audience remained attentive as Williams noted that income and education were the key contributing factors to health disparities, more so than ethnicity stating that college graduates were more likely to have a longer life expectancy than their less-educated counterparts.
“Where you live, work, learn, and play matters more [to your health] than going to the doctor,” Williams said. Realizing that health care only contributes approximately 10 percent to the causes of death and disease in the United States; Williams addressed other contributing factors that the Commission is evaluating in its study including environment, behaviors, and genetics.
He spoke to the need to address issues of health during early childhood and cited studies that showed that children who are exposed to unhealthy behaviors and situations early in life later develop a higher rate of diseases such as diabetes and cancer than children who were not exposed.
Williams challenged the audience by stating, “All Americans can do better to improve health. It’s really time for a call to action by the nation.”
At the conclusion of the lecture, a panel of commissioners addressed the audience’s questions about health issues relevant to ETSU and the surrounding region such as access to health care, environmental concerns and early childhood development resources.
In addition to Tuesday night’s lecture, the Commission planned to travel to several communities in the region as part of a larger effort to understand the unique health issues and challenges facing Appalachia and rural communities.
For more information regarding the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America or to submit your ideas for improving our nation’s health, visit their Web site at: http://commissiononhealth.org. The next lecture in the Leading Voices in Public Health series will be held on Feb. 19, 2009.
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