Hidden Epidemics: “Fight For the Living!” Advocacy & Activism in Public Health

Visibility in public health is not a given; often it must be fought for! Large burdens of disease – even those arising from pathogens still rapidly spreading through the population - can go unacknowledged and unchecked by key public health and medical institutions. In these situations, it often falls to the people with direct experience of these health conditions, their loved ones, and allies, to disrupt the ineffective routines of these institutions and elicit meaningful intervention. Despite the success of such fights being critical to disease control, the significance of activism and advocacy is often overlooked in public health discourse.

Join us online or in-person in the Coleridge Room of Jesus College at 3.30pm on 20 October when we will reflect on the roles of activism and advocacy in public health in conversation with Robin Gorna, Vice Chair of the Technical Review Panel at The Global Fund, and David Tuller, Senior Fellow in Public Health and Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Center for Global Public Health. Together we will discuss the successes of early AIDS activism, especially through the ACT UP movement (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), the beleaguered fight for the recognition and effective treatment of ME/CFS, and what needs to happen to see Long COVID properly acknowledged, researched and addressed.

Register here