Lifelines

A Rhodes Scholar turned physician offers an insider's account of public health and its critical role in our lives, from treating gun violence as a contagious disease to fighting COVID-19 disinformation. "Public health saved your life today—you just don't know it," is a phrase that Dr. Leana Wen likes to use. You don't know it because good public health is invisible. It becomes visible only in its absence, when it is underfunded and ignored, a bitter truth laid bare as never before by the devasta