“The next frontier for health is achieving equity and overall, justice. This entails addressing systemic disparities in access, quality, and outcomes, ensuring culturally competent care, and amplifying community voices in healthcare decision-making. It involves reforming policies to provide comprehensive coverage, preventive care, and mental health support. The path forward presents challenges but requires much needed collaboration between providers, policymakers, and advocates to dismantle embedded biases. By prioritizing the needs of the marginalized and underserved, we can pave the way for a more just, equitable, and healthier future, where everyone has an equal opportunity to thrive.”

“Public health remains haunted by hazards identified centuries ago as detrimental to human health. Many of the world’s poorest still don’t have access to safe water, sanitation, or housing. Public health must continue fighting for just social, political, and economic systems that ensure people have access to these core resources. We must also continue deepening our understanding of how more pernicious exposures, such as racism and sexism become embodied and manifest as disease. And we must understand new and future hazards. Exposures such as climate change and burgeoning social media use were previously not reckoned with. We must now do so to ensure a healthy future for all people, everywhere.”

“Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen routine immunization coverage drop and increasing concerns around vaccine equity and distribution in many countries. Even before the pandemic, many immunization programs fell short of reaching vulnerable populations, communicating about complex issues of risk and population health, and responding nimbly to crises. In order to make progress towards still unreached global immunization goals, there is a need for renewed focus on reaching the most vulnerable, communicating clearly about benefits of immunization, and strengthening primary health care systems.”

“As we continue to reckon with and rectify past injustices that have discriminated, stigmatized, and marginalized communities and contributed to adverse health outcomes, we must make sure that our work is driven by the communities themselves. This means engaging with and establishing structures and processes that elevate community members’ experiences, opinions, and solutions—as equal partners. In addition, we should de-implement the preoccupation on weaknesses and deficits and focus instead on identifying and cultivating the community’s strengths and resources.”

“There is growing recognition that safety net programs in the US and elsewhere erect unnecessary barriers to participation and impose unnecessary administrative burdens. This deprives many low-income families of access to the benefits they need and requires many more families to spend countless hours on paperwork and logistics. Safety net programs like SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid are known to improve health. The future of health involves implementing an agenda that dismantles administrative barriers to safety net participation and provides the economic support that low-income families need to thrive and be healthy.”

“Coming off the hottest summer on record, it’s clear how much climate change is already affecting the health of millions around the world. Looking forward it is important for the public health community to think beyond the direct and immediate impacts of climate change on health—such as the effects of extreme heat, flooding, droughts, and storms—and prepare for how climate change will affect everything, including health systems and health inequalities. Building climate-resilient health systems must be a priority.”

“Increased awareness and knowledge to promote healthy brain aging for all”

“Coming off the hottest summer on record, it’s clear how much climate change is already affecting the health of millions around the world. Looking forward it is important for the public health community to think beyond the direct and immediate impacts of climate change on health—such as the effects of extreme heat, flooding, droughts, and storms—and prepare for how climate change will affect everything, including health systems and health inequalities. Building climate-resilient health systems must be a priority.”

“We need a greater recognition and focus on the influence of online spaces as determinants of physical and mental health—particularly for young people. Adolescents today grow up in a digital age, spending vast amounts of time in digital spaces such as social media platforms. Public health researchers must develop new tools and approaches to better understand how time spent online, exposure to potentially harmful content, and changes in interpersonal relationships within the digital space influence adolescent health. In particular, we need to consider how interventions and policies can better protect adolescents in these spaces and foster healthy development.”

“We have seemingly infinite amounts of health data and data analysis tools at our fingertips. Data can help us understand and improve human health, but it is also a challenge to not perpetuate the biases in the data collection and research process into our conclusions. We need to learn how and why data was collected, and how to properly use it to understand and dismantle the root causes of observed health disparities: underlying systems of inequity and oppression.”

“It is imperative to develop a global pandemic preparedness plan that can reach all segments of the population. To achieve this, we need to harness new data streams, innovative analytical frameworks, and collaborative partnerships. I am thrilled to be a part of the CDC’s nationwide Outbreak Analytics and Disease Modeling Network, where we join hands with academic institutions, government agencies, and the private sector in an urgent mission. Together, we will ensure that health security isn’t a privilege, but a fundamental right for all.”

What’s next for health is the development of new and adaptive strategies (1) to challenge ineffective and unjust policies and practices that benefit the few at the expense of the many; (2) to integrate technological advancements without leaving vulnerable populations behind, and enhance support for communities that have been; and (3) to continue to advocate for health equity for all.

“The health of the global population has improved significantly in the past century, yet this progress conceals deep-seated gaps within and between nations. Tackling these gaps demands a more profound engagement with macrosocial forces, including fostering healthy trade and corporate practices in an increasingly globalized world. Critical to healthier communities are investments in innovative public transportation, accessible public spaces, stable housing, and particularly early childhood education. Finally, as climate change defines our century, sustainable ecosystems and resilient urban systems become imperative to protect global population health. Central to these efforts is rebuilding global trust in governments and science.”

“In the burgeoning field of health, network data analysis stands as a pivotal beacon, guiding the next wave of advancements. Envision healthcare as a vast, interconnected web, where data flows seamlessly across nodes, encompassing patients, providers, and researchers. The future lies in harnessing these intricate connections, utilizing sophisticated algorithms to unearth patterns and predict outcomes within this complex system. By applying network theory to genomics, epidemiology, and health services, we can anticipate disease spread, tailor treatments to biological networks, and optimize resource allocation. Network methods promises a more personalized and interconnected health landscape.”

“As public health researchers, we are widening our lenses beyond individual behavior change to better understand the complex, multilevel systems shaping downstream outcomes. Doing this well requires grounding our work in the lived experiences of individuals we serve, centering findings around actionable change, and reflecting on our role in bringing about both intended and unintended consequences through this iterative process.”