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Linda P. Fried and Thomas R. Frieden Examine the Future of Population Health Research and Health Policy
On May 29, the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research presented a talk entitled, "The Future of Population Health Research and Health Policy." Speakers Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH, dean and DeLamar Professor, professor of Epidemiology and Medicine, and senior vice president of Columbia University Medical Center; and Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, discussed the challenges that face the field of public health.
Dr. Frieden began the program with a detailed overview of New York City's public health initiatives. He used the example of tobacco policy to explaining how research findings can support policy change, and how integrating metrics into programs can justify current and future efforts.
Dr. Frieden (left) and Dr. Fried
For the decade leading up to the 2002, tobacco use in New York remained steady. Since the tobacco control initiative began, the City has increased taxes, implemented tobacco-free workplace policy, and ran a media campaign. Prevention policy protects people from tobacco smoke, offers help to quit tobacco use, warns people about the dangers of tobacco, enforces bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and continues to raise taxes on tobacco. With 300,000 less smokers in New York, there will be as many as 100,000 less smoking-related deaths in the future.
To date, New York has applied the knowledge to the tobacco use, salt intake, diabetes, and colon cancer prevention. Dr. Frieden left the audience with a three-part prescription for healthcare reform, consisting of electronic health records, reward for effective disease prevention, and care management to perfect workflows.
Taking the stage, Dr. Fried complimented Dr. Frieden's presentation, stressing the importance of effective collaborations between academia and 
policy makers to bring effective interventions to life. Dr. Fried elaborated on factors that affect healthcare, such as risk factors and systems of care.
"We provide acute intervention care in a chronic disease world," she explained. "By taking the big picture approach, we can begin to address health promotion over the entire life course, from gestation to old age." Dr. Fried explained that societal, social, and community issues lead to health disparities. Research at the level of populations is the only methodology that can affect the science of prevention. Design, implementation, and evaluation translate into sustainable interventions that receive funding.
Using examples of studies from the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) and studies about frailty, Dr. Fried explained that most research needs translation. In the case of CCCEH, health promotion for children rests on research about the effectiveness of interventions that in turn speak to the ultimate causes of cancer, asthma, and neurological development. By working backwards, researchers meet the challenge of identifying adverse environmental exposures. Research is translated into the community via primary and secondary prevention; into heathcare via case findings and tertiary prevention; and into policy change via initiatives.
Dr. Fried returned to the role of academia and closed with a call to action for academia to develop new evidence and new models, evaluate the effects of science, and create new kinds of pipelines to policy makers and the community.
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