Health Care : Current Reviews

The Covid-19 pandemic in historical perspective

Global Congress on Healthcare and Technologies

August 02, 2021 | Webinar

Theodore M. Brown

University of Rochester, USA

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: HCCR

Abstract:

In these times of the worldwide COVID-19 crisis, it is useful to turn to medical and public health history for desperately needed perspective and applicable lessons. By looking closely at the past we can gain a better understanding of the complex epidemiology of pandemics and of the need for rigorous data and its robust collection, of the value of social mitigation and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, of the impact of resistance to these measures based either on political opposition or cumulative fatigue, of the success of vaccines and other biomedical interventions and the differential demographic distribution of these measures, of the impact of pandemics on national populations, economies, and health systems, and of the role of international health organizations and global health regulations. I have addressed some of these issues in two of my recent publications in the American Journal of Public Health: “COVID-19, China, the World Health Organization, and the Limits of International Health Diplomacy” (August, 2020 AJPH) and “The COVID-19 Pandemic in Historical Perspective: An AJPH Dossier” (March, 2021 AJPH). In this presentation I will summarize my prior publications and update them with data from more recent developments.

Biography :

Theodore M. Brown completed his PhD in the History of Science at Princeton University and pursued postdoctoral studies in the History of Medicine and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. He spent 42 years on the faculty of the University of Rochester and is now Professor Emeritus of History and of Public Health Sciences. He is the author or co-author of several books and many articles in peer reviewed journals. His most recent book is a co-authored history of WHO, “The World Health Organization: A History” (Cambridge University Press, 2019). He has served for over twenty years as the History Editor of the American Journal of Public Health.