Welcome to our collection of insightful public health quotes. Public health encompasses a wide array of topics, from disease prevention and health promotion to the social, economic, and environmental factors that influence the well-being of communities. Throughout history, leaders, scientists, and activists have shared profound thoughts and perspectives on the importance of public health in shaping societies and improving lives.
These quotes serve as reminders of the significance of public health efforts and the continuous need for advocacy, innovation, and collaboration in addressing health challenges worldwide. Whether discussing the role of education, the impact of policy, or the value of community engagement, these words resonate with the shared goal of creating healthier, more equitable societies. Below, you’ll find a curated selection of quotes on public health that inspire, provoke thought, and highlight the importance of prioritizing the health and well-being of all individuals and communities.
I am very concerned that federal and state air quality programs do not consider public health in regulating certain classes of industrial air emissions. Kate Brown
Mercury is a potent toxin that interferes with the human nervous system. Reducing this hazard will be a major public health breakthrough. Frances Beinecke
The root cause of the looming energy problem – and the key to easing environmental, economic and religious tensions while improving public health – is to address the unending, and unequal, growth of the human population. And the one proven way to reduce fertility rates is to empower young women by educating them. Lawrence M. Krauss
Lead levels exceeding federal thresholds pose a serious public health threat, particularly for more vulnerable populations. Elizabeth Esty
The air pollution in Delhi has become a matter of public health concern nationally and internationally. M. S. Swaminathan
The idea that there is one kind of African is, of course, ridiculous. Sometimes African entrepreneurs want to kill you because you are saying public health is the priority, not roads. Of course they are right to press for that issue, but so are we right, I believe, to argue, for example, that millions of children could and should be vaccinated. Bono
It’s now evident that public health is part of national security. Scott Gottlieb
Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it’s critical to wellbeing. Diane Abbott
Just as China achieved much more than India in the realm of public health and education under an austere Communist regime, so its economic growth under a capitalist-friendly government strikes a visitor from India as nothing less than spectacular. Pankaj Mishra
What public health really is is a trust. That’s why I used the term ‘Betrayal of Trust’ as the title of my book. It’s a trust between the government and the people. Laurie Garrett
I definitely want to study global health. Right now I’m working on all the prerequisite core curriculum that Columbia has. So getting all of that out of the way. And I definitely want to pursue something along the lines of public health. Kelsey Chow
Many of the received models of modern architecture and planning owe their ultimate origin to the building code and public health reform movements of the second half of the 19th century. Kenneth Frampton
I support defunding the police – particularly the militarization of our police force and reallocating those resources toward public health. And not just health care but mental health support, affordable housing, education, alternatives to incarceration, non-emergency responses to those who might be in mental distress. Jamaal Bowman
Over and over, nature shows that it’s a really tough adversary. That’s why it’s important that we invest in laboratories, disease detectives, research, mosquito control, the public health system around the world to find, stop, track, prevent health threats. Tom Frieden
I teach in the medical school, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Business School. And it’s the best perch… because most of my work crosses boundaries. Michael Porter
America has survived and grown stronger through September 11th and subsequent wars with Afghanistan and Iraq and those who seek to do us harm. We have faced – and met – tremendous challenges ramping up a public health and safety system to protect Americans from future threats. Christopher Bond
You can’t have public health without a public health system. We just don’t want to be part of a mindless competition for resources. We want to build back capacity in the system. Paul Farmer
Terrorism is not a public health threat, relative to cancer and heart disease and malaria and so forth. George M. Church
Clearly, Mayor Bloomberg did some things right. I think he did a very good job on public health. He did a very good job on environment. I think he was right to achieve mayoral control of education. I don’t think he then applied it the right way. Bill de Blasio
Climate change is not just about carbon dioxide levels and melting polar ice caps. It is about our public health and protecting our Earth for future generations. Mike Quigley
If any country was a mine-shaft canary for the reintroduction of cholera, it was Haiti – and we knew it. And in retrospect, more should have been done to prepare for cholera… which can spread like wildfire in Haiti… This was a big rebuke to all of us working in public health and health care in Haiti. Paul Farmer
Exercise, from a public health perspective, is an unmitigated failure. The world’s longest-lived people live in environments that nudge them into more movement. They don’t use power tools, they do their own yard work, they grow a garden. Dan Buettner
Citizens must pressure the American Hospital Association, the American Public Health Association, the Centers for Disease Control and other relevant governmental agencies to make greening our hospitals and medical centers a top priority so that they themselves don’t create even more illness. Andrew Weil
While the surfeit of cheap calories that the U.S. food system has produced since the late 1970s may have taken food prices off the political agenda, this has come at a steep cost to public health. Michael Pollan
I grew up in a family really rooted in science and public health and was taught that’s a form of public service. Jake Auchincloss
Ebola so scary and so unfamiliar, it’s really important to outline what the facts are and that we know how to control it. We control it by traditional public health measures. We do that, and Ebola goes away. Tom Frieden
Since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School three years ago, we have lost over 90,000 Americans to gun violence. This is a manmade crisis that needs to be treated as the public health epidemic it has become. Elizabeth Esty
COVID-19 is a serious public health threat. Theresa Tam
For years, many public health campaigns that aimed at changing habits have been failures. Charles Duhigg
The way we work in public health is, we make the best recommendations and decisions based on the best available data. Tom Frieden
Half of all women who are sexually active, but do not want to get pregnant, need publicly funded services to help them access public health programs like Medicaid and Title X, the national family planning program. Louise Slaughter
Today we know the best way to prevent the spread of Ebola infection is through public health measures. Anthony Fauci
Most Americans think that public health is services for poor people, and since most Americans hate poor people and want all poor people’s services destroyed, they hate public health. Laurie Garrett
Society should see parenting as a public health issue and help parents to bring their children up feeling loved. We have birthing classes, but no parenting classes. The latter is desperately needed if we are to avoid self-destruction. Bernie Siegel
Renewable energy could reduce emissions but also create jobs and improve public health. Paul Polman
Newborn screening is a public health intervention that involves a simple blood test used to identify many life-threatening genetic illnesses before any symptoms begin. Lucille Roybal-Allard
I’m opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period. Kamala Harris
Harriet Washington, in ‘Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,’ documents the smallpox experiments Thomas Jefferson performed on his Monticello slaves. In fact, much of what we now think of as public health emerged from the slave system. Greg Grandin
Can you still get COVID after you’re vaccinated? Some small number will, but it will most likely be a mild case because you received the vaccination. I wish our public health officials had been clearer about this from the start. Vaccines aren’t force fields around your body, but they help our immune system better prepare to fight off a virus. Nancy Mace
The infrastructure for linking environmental health and public health is not working as well as it should. Samuel Wilson
The FDA serves a real purpose: To protect public health. Anne Wojcicki
We live in a world at constant risk of public health emergencies. In our increasingly interconnected world, public health emergencies can affect anyone, anywhere. Tedros Adhanom
Antibiotics are a very serious public health problem for us, and it’s getting worse. Resistant microbes outstrip new antibiotics. It’s an ongoing problem. It’s not like we can fix it, and it’s over. We have to fight continued resistance with a continual pipeline of new antibiotics and continue with the perpetual challenge. Anthony Fauci
Miriam Were has made outstanding contributions to public health in the developing world. She brings basic medical services to women and children in East Africa. Liya Kebede
Much of what I do in my job is think about whether relationships we see in data are causal, as opposed to just reflecting correlations. It’s exactly these issues which come up in evaluating studies in public health. Emily Oster
Strong leadership is essential in the face of health crises. Complex public health emergencies demand a collective response with high-level political and diplomatic engagement at both the national and global levels. Tedros Adhanom
I am extremely proud of my service with the government and my efforts to help safeguard public health and protect our country against the scourge of offensive biological warfare. Steven Hatfill
Legally speaking, the term ‘public rights’ is as vague and indefinite as are the terms ‘public health,’ ‘public good,’ ‘public welfare,’ and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals. Lysander Spooner
The Environmental Protection Agency’s first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants will create clean- energy jobs, improve public health, bring greater reliability to our electric power grid, bolster our national security, demonstrate the United States’ resolve to combat climate change and maybe even reduce our utility bills. Martin Luther King III
The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with. Anna Quindlen
Parks represent an efficient, cost-effective way to improve public health. Chuck Norris
I’ve been a medical and public health professional as well as a mother. I became skilled at juggling a number of priorities and competing interests. Like many other female leaders, I’ve tried to serve as a role model for the young women at my organization who are trying to balance a high-level leadership position and a family. Margaret Hamburg
It’s been overlooked for a long time as a real public health problem. All of western society is a little bit sleep-deprived, and when I say a little bit, I mean chronically. Michael Rosbash
Mark Ruffalo, aka the Incredible Hulk, is the natural gas industry’s worst nightmare: a serious, committed activist who is determined to use his star power as a superhero in the hottest movie of the moment to draw attention the environmental and public health risks of fracking. Jeff Goodell
The reality is: By the time swine flu got on the radar screen of global public health, it had already spread. It was already in the States, it was in Mexico, it was in New Zealand. By the time it reaches that point, you’ve lost the ability to contain it. Nathan Wolfe
I speak often about my personal experiences with malaria in the field as a young public health officer because it had such a profound impact on my life and my work. Tedros Adhanom
We need strong public health institutions to respond to any challenge. We need to deal with critical infrastructure. The reality is that very little money has flowed to communities to help our first responders; to help our hospitals; to help the public health infrastructure. Bob Menendez
We can build wealth in all our communities, value public education, plan for our neighborhoods, invest in housing we can afford and transportation that serves everyone, truly fund public health for safety and healing, and deliver on a city Green New Deal for clean air and water, healthy homes, and the brightest future for our children. Michelle Wu
I loved clinical practice, but in public health, you can impact more than one person at a time. The whole society is your patient. Tom Frieden
The government can access these funds but only following approval by the parliament to support our budget requirements and investments in infrastructure development, education, public health, and so on. Jose Ramos-Horta
One of the mysteries of hep B immunization is that vaccinating only ‘high risk’ groups, which was the original public health strategy, did not bring down rates of infection. Eula Biss
We have to treat smoking as a major public health issue. We have to reduce the extent to which young people start smoking, and one of the issues is the extent to which display of cigarettes and brands does draw young people into smoking in the first place. Andrew Lansley
I think public awareness of how good vaccines are for kids and how they are good for public health is a great idea. Rand Paul
Governors normally have jurisdiction over public health emergencies, but a widespread biological attack would cross state boundaries. Barton Gellman
Using predictive models from engineering and public health, designers will plan safer, healthier cities that could allow us to survive natural disasters, pandemics, and even a radiation calamity that drives us underground. Annalee Newitz
You can’t have public health without working with the public sector. You can’t have public education without working with the public sector in education. Paul Farmer
This is a historic moment in global public health, demonstrating the international will to tackle a threat to health head on. Gro Harlem Brundtland
Surgeon generals are appointed by presidents, but our work isn’t about politics. Our highest duty to to the public. Our true guide is science. Our job is to speak the truth about public health, even when it’s controversial or perceived as political. Vivek Murthy
But if you’re asking my opinion, I would argue that a social justice approach should be central to medicine and utilized to be central to public health. This could be very simple: the well should take care of the sick. Paul Farmer
In 1980, a woman promised her dying sister to change how Americans thought about breast cancer. Thirty years later, the result – the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation – is one of the nation’s largest non-profits, and one of the most successful triumphs in public health marketing and changing health habits. Charles Duhigg
Our state’s public health department is responsible for overseeing a large array of healthcare needs, including natural disasters, chronic diseases, and emerging threats. And in these efforts, we want to ensure that no one in Connecticut is left behind when it comes to access to essential care. Ned Lamont
Public health works by using evidence to lessen harm. Leana S. Wen
Of course, as consumers, we want cheap and good products; however, if these production processes are exceeding wastewater discharge standards and even causing heavy metal pollution, they will cause long-lasting damage to the ecological environment and public health. Ma Jun
The last thing you ever want to do is extend the period of frailty and disability and make people unhealthy for a longer time period. So lifespan extension in and of itself should not be the goal of medicine, nor should it be the goal of public health, nor should it be the goal of aging science. S. Jay Olshansky
If a State has reliable scientific information that demonstrates that a warning is needed for a particular food, then in the interest of public health, it should share that information with the FDA and petition for a new national standard. Nathan Deal
Mr. Speaker, our Nation must no longer be complacent about underage drinking and its alarming consequences. We must bring this national public health crisis out of the shadow and into the bright light of a national priority. Lucille Roybal-Allard
I’ve always been interested in public health approaches because it seems to me we have this yearning for silver bullets, and that is not in fact how change comes about. Change comes through silver buckshot – a lot of little things that achieve results. That’s a classic public health approach. Nicholas Kristof
Climate change is an economic, public health, and environmental issue that we have a moral responsibility to address. Brad Schneider
The United States has an active pharmaceutical industry that has brought huge benefits to the U.S. public. Most Americans, who benefit from these advances, have little understanding of how difficult it is to create an important new medical therapy and make it available to improve public health. Robert Jarvik
There’s no one place a virus goes to die – but that doesn’t make its demise any less a public health victory. Throughout human history, viral diseases have had their way with us, and for just as long, we have hunted them down and done our best to wipe them out. Jeffrey Kluger
The public health of five million children should not be left to luck or chance. Jamie Oliver
It is time to end the discrimination against people who need treatment for chemical addiction. It is time for Congress to deal with our Nation’s number one public health problem. Jim Ramstad
I did all kind of jobs to sustain myself. I worked at a grocery store, in the public health department, and what was then Thomas Cook and Sons. The last job was particularly interesting, but I got fired from it. Ruskin Bond
Natural gas obviously brings with it a number of quality-of-life environmental benefits because it is a relatively clean-burning fuel. It has a CO2 footprint, but it has no particulates. It has none of the other emissions elements that are of concern to public health that other forms of power-generation fuels do have: coal, fuel oil, others. Rex Tillerson
We are not for disarming people. When you have an epidemic it’s a public health issue, a safety issue. Sarah Brady
Advances in science and medical research and public health policies have meant that life expectancy for Australians is one of the highest in the world. Julie Bishop
The biggest public health challenge is rebuilding health systems. In other words, if you look at cholera or maternal mortality or tuberculosis in Haiti, they’re major problems in Haiti, but the biggest problem is rebuilding systems. Paul Farmer
In my life as an immigrant living in low-income communities, as an emergency physician and as a public health advocate, I have seen more preventable deaths than I can count or recall. Leana S. Wen
I’m active in PAX, which is a gun awareness organization. We treat gun safety as a public health issue. Mandy Patinkin
When elected officials abandon our environment and ruin our natural resources, public health is endangered. I know the importance of providing a clean environment for our children; I have attended more than one funeral for a child who has died from an asthma attack. Gwen Moore
Depression has been called the world’s number one public health problem. In fact, depression is so widespread it is considered the common cold of psychiatric disturbances. But there is a grim difference between depression and a cold. Depression can kill you. David D. Burns
Public health depends on winning over hearts and minds. It’s not enough to just have a good policy, you have to convince people to actually follow it. Leana S. Wen
Meat consumption is just as dangerous to public health as tobacco use… It’s time we looked into holding the meat producers and fast-food outlets legally accountable. Neal Barnard
Vaccines and antibiotics have made many infectious diseases a thing of the past; we’ve come to expect that public health and modern science can conquer all microbes. But nature is a formidable adversary. Tom Frieden
AIDS is a plague – numerically, statistically and by any definition known to modern public health – though no one in authority has the guts to call it one. Larry Kramer
Extreme weather threatens our energy and electric grid, federal buildings, transportation infrastructure, access to natural resources, public health, our relationships across the globe, and many other aspects of life. Matt Cartwright
In honor of Surgeon General Koop’s legacy, we should ensure that the position of surgeon general is protected from political interference, funded appropriately and nominated from the ranks of career public health professionals who merit consideration, as is done in the other uniformed services. Richard Carmona
And I believe that the best buy in public health today must be a combination of regular physical exercise and a healthy diet. Julie Bishop
I want to thank the efforts of the American Public Health Association and its 200-plus partners who have organized events around the Nation that serve to raise everyone’s awareness of the need to improve public health. Lois Capps
Infectious disease exists at this intersection between real science, medicine, public health, social policy, and human conflict. There’s a tendency of people to try and make a group out of those who have the disease. It makes people who don’t have the disease feel safer. Andrea Barrett
