Chelsea Cipriano , Kushal Kadakia , and Dave Chokshi argue that the US must end its collective amnesia about public health disasters and act collaboratively to strengthen services
Throughout American history, leaders have stood up in the aftermath of disasters and committed to honoring the past by investing for the future. For example, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 led NASA to overhaul its safety culture and attracted new partnerships that are paving the way to America’s return to the Moon.1 Likewise, after a multistate blackout that same year, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation was charged with ensuring nationwide reliability of the power grid through an innovative multistate model of standardized sharing of data, staffing, and resources among power companies.2
Yet when it comes to public health disasters, the US has consistently chosen to forget instead of futureproof. Consider the repeated cuts to core public health agencies and programs, including the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program, after the H1N1, Ebola, and Zika outbreaks in the decade before covid-19.3 More recently, growing misinformation about childhood immunizations has reversed progress on …