Michelle Williams discussed the growing interest in the field of public health, the key skills that public health students need, and her wish that public health principles be taught from kindergarten through primary school, in a May 11, 2021, podcast from The China Current.
“I think young people are seeing that public health is at the very root of building a resilient, thriving, innovative, and sustainable society,” said Williams, dean of the faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She said that key skills for public health students including listening, analytic thinking, and effective communicating.
Williams also spoke about the unequal COVID-19 infection rates, hospitalization rates, and death rates among Black Americans, Latinx Americans, and Indigenous people. “People in global governance are recognizing what we in public health had understood before: that discrimination and racism are public health problems,” she said.
Listen to the podcast: Health, Undervalued