Today’s public health professionals work in a world of increasing international cooperation and interdependence that will challenge this year’s graduating class from HSPH, said Julio Frenk, Mexico’s current Minister of Health, in his Commencement address in the Kresge courtyard on June 7. Frenk is a former visiting professor at HSPH.

"More than any other class of graduates, you, the first public health class of the 21st century, will necessarily operate on a global stage," he said.

He said cross-cultural exchanges were nothing new. After all, he pointed out, the term "citizen of the world" was invented in the 4th century BC. What is new, he said, is the intensity and pace of integration.

"Like never before, the consequences of actions that are taken far away show up literally at our doorsteps," he said.

Since 1980, the number of international travelers has tripled to three million every day, he said. Each trip represents one of the biggest challenges for today’s public health practitioners–dealing with the transmission of communicable diseases. The sheer scale of jet travel has produced thousands of potential contacts for transferring illnesses every day, he said.

"Jet planes have made even the longest intercontinental flight briefer than the incubation period of any human infectious disease," he said.

Drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, for example, could travel from Russia to Paris in hours. The theory has been borne out elsewhere. An outbreak of cholera in Peru in the early 1990s became a continental epidemic in days, he said.

People and materials are not the only items that cross borders, he said. Ideas, too, can provide challenges for public health officials. Anti-smoking measures in the United States can have profound effects in other countries, especially when lawsuits curtail tobacco companies’ ability to make money in America.

"Those same victories give those same companies incentive to look for new markets with less stringent regulations," he said.

The specter of increased tobacco sales becomes more dramatic after looking at the statistics. By 2020, said Frenk, 10 million people are expected to die of smoking-related diseases, which would make tobacco use the leading killer worldwide.

"This shows why international policies must be coupled with global action," he said.

Telemedicine, in which medical care and guidance is delivered through telecommunications systems, is the way of the future, he said. The technology will further bring countries, doctors, and patients together, while eliminating physical distance as a significant barrier to health care.

But Frenk also urged that the "distance divide" not simply be replaced by a "digital divide" in which only those wealthy enough to afford the telecommunications systems benefit from telemedicine. He reminded listeners that while 80 percent of the world’s population live in developing countries, less than 10 percent of them are Internet users.

He said people must learn to affirm their diversity, while avoiding the "dark side" of international interdependence, which can engender exclusion, inequality, and insensitivity to others’ cultures.

"Poor health anywhere in the world is our shared responsibility," he said.

More than 340 degrees were awarded by HSPH this year. Members of the graduating class came from 29 countries.

A webcast of Frenk delivering the Commencement address is now available to download from http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/webcast.html. More information about Commencement and other speeches are also available on the site.

Class Day

The first-ever HSPH Class Day kicked off the Commencement season in style with student and faculty speakers, student performances, swing dancing, and refreshments on June 6 in the Kresge courtyard. The event was organized by the Office for Students.

Awards were also handed out. In addition to the awards announced in the June 7 issue of HPH NOW, the following were also bestowed:

Student Recognition Award: Josh Bloom, Department of Population and International Health

Roger L. Nichols Excellence in Teaching Award: Joel Schwartz, Department of Environmental Health

Faculty Teaching Citations: Kimberlee Gauvreau, Department of Biostatistics; Karin Dumbaugh, Department of Population and International Health; Ellen Eisen, Department of Environmental Health

Teaching Assistant Award: Denise Marie Scholtens, Department of Biostatistics

Mentoring Award: Jack Kasten, Department of Health Policy and Management