Dr. Michelle Morse
0:19:58
The board of health in New York City First convened in response to a yellow fever outbreak in eighteen o five.
0:20:06
For the next fifty years or so, the city only devoted time and money to public health in moments of crisis.
0:20:12
The organization would otherwise lie dormant.
0:20:15
We know that public health works best as preventive health.
0:20:19
The health department's work creates an invisible shield that keeps New Yorkers safe.
0:20:25
That is life saving work and it extends far beyond emergency response.
0:20:30
It has a tangible impact on the everyday health and longevity of our community.
0:20:35
It requires however a sustained investment.
0:20:39
In 1913, excuse the history lesson, chair shalman and co chair Moya.
0:20:44
In 1913, then commissioner Herman Biggs said, public health is purchasable.
0:20:51
Within natural limitations, a community can determine its own death rate.
0:20:56
In other words, we can literally buy ourselves more health and time and over the course of history, we have.
0:21:03
When commissioner Biggs led the health department, life expectancy for New Yorkers was about 40 or so years, though in their late forties.
0:21:11
Now it's over eighty years.
0:21:15
Though investments have created leaps forward in public health science and interventions like clean water, vaccines, and improved sanitation, we have bought ourselves decades of more life.
