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All Things Public Health

@allthingspublichealth_

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Outbreak insights, preparedness, and PH history.
MPH | Preparedness Epidemiologist specializing in high-consequence pathogens.
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You don’t need a crisis to see public health in action. You just need a regular Thursday.

Which one of these 6 touchpoints did you interact with today?
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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

Welcome to All Things Public Health!

This page exists to show you what happens behind the scenes of health security, outbreak tracking, and disaster response.

Behind the beak. 🐦‍⬛

People often say public health is an invisible shield. When we do our jobs right, nothing happens. But keeping things normal takes a lot of steady work.
I work as a preparedness epidemiologist focused on high-consequence pathogens. My day-to-day work is planning for worst-case scenarios and figuring out how to stop outbreaks before they spread.
I started this page and my Substack newsletter to explain this work in plain language. No corporate buzzwords. Just clear, honest facts.

Here is what you will find here:
🐦‍⬛ Clear updates on current outbreaks
🐦‍⬛ Real looks at how emergency response works
🐦‍⬛ Straightforward facts about disease tracking
🐦‍⬛ Practical tips on staying prepared at home

The first newsletter post is live now. It breaks down what it actually looks like when disease tracking meets emergency planning.
Head to the link in my bio to read it and subscribe.
See you on the frontlines.

#PublicHealth #Epidemiology #EmergencyPreparedness #InfectiousDisease #AllThingsPublicHealth by @allthingspublichealth_

Long before modern lab tests, a signer of the Declaration of Independence gave dengue fever its most famous nickname.

In the late 1700s, busy American shipping ports were hot spots for mosquito-borne sickness. Ships constantly brought in goods, standing water, and hitchhiking insects.

In 1780, a massive fever hit Philadelphia. Patients developed sudden high temperatures, severe headaches, and deep joint pain so intense that people thought their bones were cracking.

Dr. Benjamin Rush cared for these patients and wrote down what he saw. He gave the sickness a vivid name: break-bone fever.

Today we call it dengue. Rush did not have microscopes to find the virus, but his detailed notes helped early doctors spot the pattern of mosquito outbreaks in port towns.

Read the full deep dive on Substack. Link in bio.
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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

In November 2023, I caught norovirus for the first time in my life. As an epidemiologist, I knew all the clinical definitions by heart. But living through it was something else entirely: an unrelenting 24-hour cycle of violent nausea, vomiting, and bone-deep dehydration.

Every November, right as we pack into indoor holiday gatherings, an epidemiologist’s inbox starts seeing the first wave of outbreak alerts.

Most people reach straight for the hand sanitizer, but here is the cold truth: norovirus laughs at alcohol rubs.
Because norovirus lacks a fatty outer envelope and is shielded by a rigid protein capsid, alcohol cannot break it down. Relying on hand sanitizer is essentially handing the virus a free pass. Your only real defense is old-school mechanical friction: warm water, soap, and 20 seconds of scrubbing to wash it down the drain.

The history of the “winter vomiting disease,” why standard wipes fail, and what outbreak preparedness looks like on the frontlines is live on Substack. Link in bio.
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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

The modern mask in your first-aid kit was invented to fight a 1910 winter plague.

In November 1910, a deadly outbreak tore across Northeast China. It killed nearly every person it infected.

Most doctors thought it spread through rats and fleas. But Dr. Wu Lien-teh noticed the sickness attacked the lungs. He realized it was spreading through the air.

To protect workers, he built a simple mask using cheap layers of gauze and cotton. Other doctors mocked his idea at first. Then Dr. Wu’s masks started saving lives, while those who refused to wear them caught the plague and died.

His simple cloth design brought the massive outbreak to an end in just months. It became the blueprint for the surgical and N95 masks used by medical teams today.
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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

A lot of folks have been asking about the bird flu headlines coming out of Utah lately.

Mink have respiratory receptors that can catch both bird and human flu strains, making them a high-stakes host for animal viruses adapting to mammals.

Full breakdown is on Substack. Link in bio.

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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

Happy Halloween week! Behind the spooky costume you see everywhere this time of year is actually the world’s first piece of full-body PPE.

For me, the plague doctor is not a Halloween aesthetic. It is a daily reminder of what frontline commitment really means: putting on your gear and stepping up for your community when things get hard.

Read the full breakdown of history’s creepiest PPE on Substack. Link in bio.
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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

I got my shots in late September and mid-October. A sore arm for a day from my flu shot, and about thirty-six hours of mild aches and a low fever from my updated Covid vaccine.

Sitting on the couch feeling tired, I remembered having actual Covid in 2022. I was so sick for over a week: high fever, nasty cough, exhaustion, and some of those symptoms lingered for weeks. It made me appreciate only feeling a little uncomfortable for a couple of days over the real deal.

If you have questions about vaccines, ask your doctor, pharmacist, or county health department. That is why they are there.

Full piece is up on Substack.
🔗Link in bio.

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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

The loud emergency alarm you hear on your phone can trace its roots back to a fake alien invasion.

On Halloween Eve in 1938, a radio station broadcast a play about an alien attack. It used fake breaking news updates to tell the story. Many listeners got scared and jammed emergency phone lines.

The confusion taught officials a big lesson. In an emergency, how you share news matters just as much as what you say.

The broadcast pushed leaders to make strict rules for emergency alerts so the public always knows when a warning is real.
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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth. by @allthingspublichealth_

Public health is a recipe of essential partnerships working side by side. When you mix all of these ingredients together, you get the public health system.
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#behindthebeak #publichealth #epidemiology #publichealthhistory #allthingspublichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

To go along with today’s article, here is an example of public health policy created from an emergency.

Every time you peel back a foil seal on a bottle of pain relievers, you are interacting with public health law.

Before the fall of 1982, over-the-counter medicine opened with a simple plastic cap. Anyone could open a bottle on a shelf, close it, and put it right back.

That changed when seven people near Chicago were killed by cyanide-laced Tylenol.

The nationwide panic was instant. But public health leaders, manufacturers, and federal regulators didn’t just issue temporary warnings. They took that window of urgency and wrote permanent safety standards into federal law with the Anti-Tampering Act of 1983.

Disasters expose where our everyday systems are weak. But unless we turn those painful lessons into enforceable policy, we leave the door wide open for the next failure.

Read today’s full piece on Substack for a deeper look at why health preparedness belongs in permanent policy. Link in bio.
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#behindthebeak #emergencypreparedness #healthpolicy #allthingspublichealth #publichealth by @allthingspublichealth_

You interact with public health preparedness more than you think.

🔗Head to the link in my bio for the new article on why steady communication matters for all of us.

#PublicHealth #Epidemiology #EmergencyPreparedness #InfectiousDisease #AllThingsPublicHealth by @allthingspublichealth_