National Public Health Week 2021

Everyone deserves to live a long and healthy life while being in a safe environment. To make that possible, the American Public Health Association (APHA) needs to address the causes of poor health and disease risk among individuals and within our communities. 

Where we live, learn, work, worship, and play affects each and every one of us and can determine our health and life expectancy. In the workplace, let's partner across public and private sectors to ensure that decisions are being made with the public's health and well-being in mind. 

Within our communities, we should start new conversations with our neighbors and friends, and become advocates for positive change. Working together, every community can become healthier and can lead to becoming the healthiest nation. The APHA needs your help to get there.

During each day of National Public Health Week, the APHA focuses on a particular public health topic. Then, they identify ways every person can make a difference on that topic. Those areas are critical to future success in creating the healthiest nation, and the APHA says that everyone can do their part to help.

This week is National Public Health Week, and the themes for the week are as follows:

• Monday: Rebuilding -- Focuses on the need for a rebuilt public health infrastructure, and greater investment in public health: less than 3% of health care spending is on public health.
• Tuesday: Advancing Racial Equity -- Long-standing inequalities in health care access have been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Eliminating structural racism leads to better health outcomes for communities of color.
• Wednesday: Strengthening Community -- Many communities in the U.S. face barriers to good health outcomes, whether it's poor environmental conditions or lack of health care access.
• Thursday: Galvanizing Climate Justice -- Climate change has a massive impact on human health, as pollution and changing weather patterns disrupt food access, cause environmental disasters, and worsen health conditions.
• Friday: Constructing COVID-19 Resilience -- Demonstrates the importance of fighting misinformation as well as the need for improved response to future public health emergencies.
• Saturday: Uplifting Mental Health and Wellness -- Advocates for affordable and easy access to mental health services, particularly for vulnerable people at greater risk of mental health issues.
• Sunday: Elevating the Essential and Health Workforce --Worker protections lead to better health outcomes, and a strong public health workforce creates better public health programs that measurably improve the health of communities.

Join the observance of National Public Health Week 2021 and become part of a growing movement to create the healthiest nation in one generation. During the week, the APHA will celebrate the power of prevention, advocate for healthy and fair policies, share strategies for successful partnerships and champion the tole of a strong public health system.