TCNJ

22 The College of New Jersey Magazine P rior to 2020, Carolina Borges had grown perfectly used to people being unfamiliar with her field. "Epi-what?" new friends would say when she would tell them she taught epidemiology — the system- atic, scientific study of diseases — at The College of New Jersey. But since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, she's noticed a big change. "Recently I told an Uber driver, 'I teach epidemiology,' and his res- ponse was 'Oh, that's so cool. What do you think about this? What do you think about that?' He knew what I was talking about," says Borges. "Two years ago, that would never have happened. Now, the pandemic is showing these professionals working behind the scenes." Public health, including the work of epidemiologists like Borges, has long been a below-deck operation, bringing together data and practice to address health risks, threats, and inequities on a communal and soci- etal scale — from plans for vaccine distribution to bans on sugary drinks to awareness campaigns about the danger of vaping. But during the novel coronavirus pandemic of 2020, public health burst onto the forefront of broader awareness: Lockdown orders and mask mandates affected homes, schools, and businesses alike; jargon like flattening the curve went main- stream; and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, became a household name, headlining the nightly news. Not only is public health now more visible, Borges says, the profession, often confused with medical care, is becoming better understood. "Clinical care is important: People will keep getting diseases and will need treatment," she says. "But we need planning, prevention, and manage- ment too. Public health professionals do a lot of disease detective work." Marc Trotochaud '16, an analyst at Johns Hopkins' Center for Health Security and a research associate at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, looks at the profession on a global scale. "It's so many different things," he says of his field. "It's people who work in health care, sanitation, food inspec- tion, health communications, and disease prevention. One might have a background in social and behavioral science, like I do, or some might have a chemistry background." Trotochaud has drawn on his research at the intersection of behav- ior and communications to inform public health policy and guide the distribution of information during the pandemic. He has seen the Twitter account for the Center for Health Security grow in the past year from a few hundred followers to more than 200,000. "When there is an outbreak, suddenly people are much more inter- ested," Trotochaud says. "That's the shift that's happening right now." At TCNJ's School of Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science, faculty and students were already well aware of public health at work in the world around them; but as it has broken out into the spotlight, they've found Facing page: Carolina Borges " Instead of working one on one with clients, we're working more at a popu- lation level, and that's a really powerful feeling." — Brenda Seals

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