Public Health, Public Trust and American Fragility in a Pandemic Era: The Critical Role of Health Care Professionals

This book explores how professionals and policymakers in mental and physical health care can use lessons from the COVID pandemic to better inform future public policy and treatment.

Using the United States as a test case, Norbert Goldfield draws on his professional experience in healthcare and policy-making to explore how some societies have emerged from the pandemic with increasing internal conflicts. The author uses excerpts from his own COVID diary to revisit key stages in the response to the COVID pandemic to highlight where division has entered the publish health discourse, and to set out an alternative vision of how mental and physical health can be framed professionally and publicly. In addition to this account, Dr Goldfield details how our political system should change with respect to pandemics and how health professionals, together with the lay public, can help. Specifically, the book highlights the three critical issues confronting American pandemic fragility: increasing vaccinations, decreasing misinformation, and fostering greater linkages between our public and acute health systems.

This book will be invaluable for all types of health care professionals, both in mental and physical health arenas, lay people interested in the pandemic, and for policymakers.