Opinion: Equipping public health students to navigate controversy, uncertainty
Public health leaders have a lot to learn from the debate over the origins of COVID-19—namely, how to deal with uncertainty and engage civilly, say Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Michaela Kerrissey and Dick Tofel.
In an Oct. 21 op-ed in STAT, Kerrissey, associate professor of management, and Tofel, instructor in social and behavioral sciences, explained why they focused on the COVID origin debate in a case study they developed and are teaching this fall. The case explores both the zoonotic theory (that COVID jumped from animals to humans) and the theory that it was the result of a lab leak, focusing not on which idea is correct—that’s unknowable, they wrote—but on how disagreement between proponents of each idea became so charged.
Rather than treating the debate as taboo, leaning in to learn about it offers students—and all of us, Kerrissey and Tofel pointed out—critical insights into the politicization of public health and lessons on how to be an effective leader amid polarization. Specifically, the case study provides:
- Exposure to passionate arguments on either side of an issue, even when advocates’ positions are irreconcilable and even if they’re partisan
- Insight into why people can hold such strong positions even when they’re weakly grounded
- Better understanding of how trust in public health has eroded
Ultimately, Kerrissey and Tofel wrote, the goal is to equip public health students—the future of the field—with the ability to “separate heat from light.” Doing so will likely entail difficult conversations in the classroom, they acknowledged. But, they added, “We are determined that they be civil and respectful without being compromising or disingenuous. The enormity of our societal losses from COVID, and the critical imperatives of public health in our country, demand no less.”
Read the STAT op-ed:
The origins of Covid and public health’s uncertainty problem
Learn more:
At inaugural ‘Camp Cura,’ students tackle controversial health issues with an open mind (Harvard Chan School news)
