Hannah Aaron

What inspired you to study public health?

I was inspired to study public health because I wanted to get a big picture perspective on population-level health issues and learn how I could make a large-scale impact in my city.

What has been the single most rewarding experience of your career/studies so far?

The most rewarding experience has been the chance to create my own public health program in one of my classes last semester. My team created a program to combat the issue of infant mortality in St. Louis. This experience opened my eyes to how public health programs can make an impact on a city or state-wide level all the way down to an individual level.

Advice:

Public health interfaces with so many other fields — politics, medicine, education, environmental health, you name it. Exploring how public health affects and is affected by other disciplines will only make you a better public health practitioner.

What do you think is the biggest challenge that the public health field should be focusing on?

One of the biggest challenges is how climate change will affect public health. Rising temperatures and changes in precipitation and weather patterns will affect our global food supply and how disease is spread. We should focus on how to slow down and when possible stop the progression of climate change for the good of the environment and our health.