Promoting Public Health
HIGHLIGHTS
hat first precious cry of an infant. It will happen about 4 million times in the
New Year. Parents in the United States will hear those precious sounds about
once every eight seconds throughout 2009. A newborn next year can look for-
ward to living an average of 78 years. That’s nearly 30 years longer than children born a cen-
tury ago. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the CDC — estimates that
about 25 years of that gain resulted from advances in public health.
Public health is the health of the population as a whole, rather than health considerations
focusing on individual people. What were those life-extending public health advances? The
CDC cited vaccination programs, better control of infectious diseases through improved
sanitation and the development of antibiotics, better prenatal care, and safer workplaces,
cars, and foods.
Whether the next 100 years will bring an equally dramatic increase in human lifespan is
anyone’s guess. But chemistry is playing a major — although often invisible — role in fostering continued improvements in public health in the 21st century.
These activities in protecting the health of the whole community of people range far afield.
And they involve multiple areas of science. New methods for preventing, diagnosing, and
treating infectious diseases that could trigger epidemics. Improved ways of safeguarding the
supply of blood used for transfusion. “Green chemistry” that minimizes use and release of
potentially toxic substances in industry. Confronting the challenge of antibiotic-resistant
bacteria. And developing new vaccines.
◆T T hescienceofobjects
1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair
— nanotechnology —
promises to produce
a new generation of
life-saving vaccines.
◆ Chemists are meeting
the challenge of antibiotic resistance by
producing “
two-for-one” antibiotics and
other disease-fighters
that attack bacteria
in new ways.
◆ A chemist is helping to lead efforts
to make affordable
medications for HIV
and malaria available
in sub-Saharan Africa,
where those diseases
are on a rampage.
The Value of Vaccines
Take vaccines, for example. The CDC cited vaccination as one of the 10 great public health
achievements of the 20th century. Today, vaccines are available to prevent almost 30 different infectious diseases in children and adults. Yet scientists are still struggling to develop
vaccines against some of the most devastating human ailments.
We need a safer and more effective vaccine for tuberculosis, for instance, which causes
almost 1. 6 million deaths, mainly in developing countries. There is no vaccine to prevent
◆ Researchers are
developing new ways
to detect counterfeit
drugs, the source of
increasingly serious
problems in some
parts of the world.
DiD YOU KNOW?
Public health deals with the health of whole populations, rather than the health of
individual people.
Advances in public health are mainly responsible for the increased life expectancy at
birth, which averages 75 years for men and 81 for women.
The U.S. Public Health Service, the main health agency of the federal government,
dates to a 1798 law establishing hospitals for seamen in the merchant marine.
Experts regard vaccines as the most cost-e ective way of preventing infectious
diseases.
A vaccine for HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS, could have major impact on public
health, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 2 million new HIV
infections occur annually.
More than 60,000 people in the United States die annually from bacterial infections
that are resistant to antibiotics.
◆ By merging chemistry and detective
work, scientists are
using “environmental
forensics” to identify
and track down the
origin of environmental pollutants.
