Abstract
In his new work, Healthier: Fifty Thoughts on the Foundations of Population Health, Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH explores the many aspects of and challenges to the study of population health. Galea, a Dean at the School of Public Health at Boston University, offers insights gained from years of work in the field in this collection of 50 essays. The book is divided into 5 sections beginning with an overview of the foundations of population health before moving to essays on the current state of the field, inequities and the health of marginalized communities, challenges to progress in population health, and future directions for the field. The book covers an expansive set of issues, and each essay stands alone as a sort of primer on its topic. The chapters move quickly, but despite the discrete nature of each entry, Galea takes care to weave common themes throughout the essays, foremost among them that we in the population health field must learn to be advocates.
Galea directs his essays to his academic peers rather than the public, in part because he believes the field must improve its relationship and communication with the public to achieve better population health outcomes. Before public policy can be enacted, population health researchers must understand how to translate effectively their findings on and potential solutions to various health issues. Each chapter serves as an overview of its topics, providing a brief backstory, highlighting recent accomplishments, acknowledging obstacles, and often culminating in a call for further research, advocacy, and action. One can imagine vibrant discussions among those interested in or pursuing careers in academic population health research sparked by reading any one of these entries. Because the individual essays are relatively brief, there is considerable room for further exploration, and the book is formatted such that each essay includes its references at the end of the chapter, providing a convenient reading list for anyone wishing to delve deeper.
In addition to highlighting areas for improvement, Galea also examines the many triumphs of public health interventions and concludes his book with an essay entitled “A World Without Public Health,” in which he uses mathematical models to imagine what the adult per capita cigarette consumption might have been without the doubling of the federal cigarette tax and other interventions alongside similar examples for cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, and motor vehicle safety. In all, he concludes that “during the past century, public health has also realized tremendous successes” and that such previous achievements can serve as inspiration for advances in other areas.
Overall, the book covers a considerable amount of ground on population health topics without digging too deeply into any one issue. It is a useful overview of the field and the challenges facing those interested in improving population health, and Galea's concise yet engaging prose makes for a compelling read. Galea wants his readers to be advocates, and he does an excellent job of providing them with a vast array of issues to explore while being honest about the challenges ahead for the field. Healthier is a useful text for those looking for an up-to-date review of population health, its aims, its obstacles, and, importantly, its successes.