Public Health, Public Trust, and American Fragility in a Pandemic Era

This lecture will discuss how health care professionals and policymakers can use the lessons of the COVID pandemic to inform better public policy and treatment going forward. Drawing from his extensive experience in health care and policy-making, Dr. Goldfield will examine how we have emerged from the pandemic with increasing internal conflicts. He will analyze the stages through which division entered our public health discourse, and offer an alternative community based vision of how mental and physical health can be framed. Finally, Dr Goldfield will detail how our political system should change in response to the lessons learned from the pandemic to address critical issues contributing to American pandemic fragility such as increasing vaccinations, decreasing misinformation, and fostering greater linkages between our public and acute health systems.

Biography

Norbert Goldfield, M.D., is a practicing internist at Baystate Health in Springfield, Massachusetts, with over 30 years of experience restructuring health care systems both at the national and community levels. He possesses extensive experience working with Israelis and Palestinians through Healing Across the Divides, a non-profit organization that he founded and continues to direct. In addition, he is the founder and executive director of Ask Nurses & Doctors, a bipartisan organization with a mission to help elect candidates who prioritize solutions to US health care problems. Dr. Goldfield is the author of more than 50 books and articles, including Public Health, Public Trust and American Fragility in a Pandemic Era from which he will draw for his lecture at UNE.

Suggested Reading

Goldfield, Norbert. Public Health, Public Trust and American Fragility in a Pandemic Era: The Critical Role of Health Care Professionals. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2024.