An Autobiography That Is Also a History of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The first essential is his conviction that the "basis for public health is to achieve health equity . . . the bottom line is social justice in health. (p18) Second "is the understanding that the science base of public health action is epidemiology, (p18) the discipline that "determines the gaps in social justice, identifies the groups with poor health outcomes, discovers the details of disease causation, and provides clues to how corrective action might improve health. ',(p18) Foege's third "essential ' ' is "good management for efficient implementation of corrective actions. (p18) The title of this book also encapsulates a key insight (he calls it a "bias ) that the way to improve health equity is to figure out how to link the fears of the rich to the needs of the poor.(p30) The rich will respond to the needs of the poor when they understand that they can benefit because they, too, are at risk. [...]he despises the commercialization ofhealth care: "When profit became the bottom line, quality, equity and outcomes all suffered. "(p168) The financing ofpublic health programs should be based on two new principles, he argues. The first is that "programs with proven positive benefit-cost ratios should become entitlements and no longer compete with other public health programs. "(p167) The second is that "public health expenditures should be indexed to total health expenditures. (p167) INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF PUBLIC HEALTH In summary, we commend this book without reservations to our colleagues in public health disciplines and, no less strongly, to all interested in reading about persons who have had brilliantly effective careers-and who write about them with vigorous attention to detail.