(upbeat music) - Hi everyone.

I'm Steve Adubato.

We're honored to once again be joined by Dr. Perry N. Halkitis who is the Dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health.

Good to see you, doctor.

- Hey, Steve.

Happy, happy New Year.

- Happy New Year.

We're taping on Valentine's Day as well.

This will be seen later-- - Happy Valentine's Day.

- Let's do this, three years plus into this pandemic.

I mean, you have been an incredible resource for those of us in the media, particularly our partners and colleagues at NJ Spotlight News.

Check out Perry's past interviews with us, Dr. Halkitis on the air with our colleagues.

Most significant lessons about public health communication would be, Perry?

- I think the most important lesson for me and I'm writing about this right now in this new book that I'm putting together, is, you know, we have to focus on how human beings behave.

You know, we went into this pandemic like we do with many medical conditions thinking that human beings make rational decisions about their health.

You know, and we know that people do not do that.

And you know, I'm inspired by this train of thought that talks about the brain having two parts, like the part that's the pleasure and is a gut reaction and a part that's rational and decision making.

Every public health model we've built over the course of the last century assumes the latter.

And we know human beings don't act that way.

So, looking forward, what do we need to do?

Put people at the center of our public health responses, think about what's driving them, and don't just assume they're gonna get vaccinated, or put on a mask, or, you know, continue to not eat well throughout the course of their lives.

Because people don't always make rational decisions.

- And by the way, give everyone the name of the book, Perry.

- The book is called something like "People, Pandemics and Politics: How Human Beings Created HIV, COVID-19, and Other Pandemics."

- Got it.

So let me ask you this, for folks watching us right now, folks in New Jersey, folks across the region and the nation, who basically look at public health this way or the role of government and public health.

You don't tell me what to do with my body.

You stay out of my decision about my health and the health of those closest to me.

You have the floor doctor.

- Yeah, so I think, look, I hear that all the time.

And what we have to do more effectively is use different forms of communication and convince folks like that to make them feel empowered to be able to make the decisions by themselves.

Just think about a child, if you keep telling a child don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, like don't touch the stove, the child is intrigued by that and goes and touches the stove and burns itself, right?

And so we need to build models that give people their own motivations.

What motivates me, Steve, is different from what motivates you, is different from what motivates a 13 year old kid living in Camden, right?

And so, talk to the community, see what are the motivators, find the pure leaders in that community, and then use those messages.

One message will not work for everyone and that's what we just assume that everyone acts the same way.

- Okay.

So let's go back to the role of public officials here.

Our former president of the United States, Donald Trump, early public statements, it'll go away by April, 2020.

I think he's doing this with his hand.

It's going down, it'll be gone, and it'll be a cold.

Our current president, Joe Biden, not sure where this came from, and not for the Centers for Disease Control or some other folks, pretty much we're done with this, with the pandemic, and we are taping on February 14th, 2023.

He was wrong.

The previous president was literally dead wrong.

What is the role of government officials, not just healthcare professionals, but government officials when it comes to publicly communicating about public health?

- The biggest role of government officials is not to use politics to send their messages to actually use facts.

So both presidents are being motivated in their messaging by the political situation in our country.

And so that is what is misleading, right?

They are both forms of misinformation in some ways, right?

Maybe not exactly the same, but that same manifestation.

Let's be clear, if you put people who are like public health workers, like heads of departments of health, in front of the camera and let them do the talking and ask our politicians to say, "Look, I am not the expert here.

I defer to this person.

This person's gonna give you the clear message," we will eliminate the politics that have driven so much of this information.

And I will tell you that one of the chapters in the book focuses on this very issue.

How political animals, how political beings shaped the health of our country and how they shaped our response to the Covid 19 pandemic.

So let's ask them just step aside and not to like focus on their own aspirations but the wellbeing of the whole population.

- But Perry, think about this, you have a governor in Florida-- - Yep.

- Whose premise for public office, to a significant extent is based on this public communication about COVID.

Come on down here.

We don't have the rules they have in New Jersey.

We don't have a government that tells you when to put on a mask, how far away you should be from each other.

What's gonna be open, what's not.

We're open, the heck with the masks, hang out together.

That's a platform, that is a public policy, and political platform and ideology that has what to do with public health and science?

- That has nothing to do with public health and science.

In fact, the same thing, you could say the same thing about Florida, you know, with regard to what the governor there has done around LGBTQ health issues and LGBT in schools and talking about, you know, critical race theory.

None of those decisions are based on any fact or reason.

They're based on appealing to like what one psychologist as a system, one of our brain, you know, the pleasure principle, the feeling good principle, for a very small portion of the population at the expense of a larger portion of the population.

- Who the heck are folks supposed to trust?

We in the media and some of our colleagues who are like, "Yeah, let's stop with the COVID stories."

I understand the thinking because there are so many other issues to explore, but we don't have that luxury.

That's number one.

Which is why we're talking to Dr. Halkitis, one of the nation's top experts in public health.

A, how are we in media doing with respect to public health communication?

B, what do we need to do moving forward?

- Yeah, so the media, look, the media's been trying to do its job.

The problem with the media I think often is that it doesn't explain that when a new piece of information comes out it doesn't make the old piece of information wrong or bad.

It just means it's new information.

And that things evolve.

For those of us, Steve, who are old enough, you know, and I'm turning 60 in a couple of weeks, you know, I remember the 1980s, every single day there was a new piece of information about HIV every single day.

So you can't say, "Oh no, but you told me that yesterday."

Right, I did tell you that yesterday.

But new knowledge developed and with this new knowledge we are correcting the old knowledge.

I think one more thing we have to do, and this is the lesson, and I think from the last few years and I think this is what the Biden Administration is trying to do by infusing all this money into the public health workforce, is like you have to find people from within the communities.

People who look like the people who live in those neighborhoods and provide them the tools to become the public health workers.

Because people like me with this suit on and this tie on going to the community is not gonna be as effective as my neighbor, my neighbor John, my neighbor Karen, my neighbor whoever, who's sharing messages with me.

- Got a minute left.

The fight, the continuous fight for medical equity in the LBGTQ population.

Minute.

Go ahead Perry.

- Yeah, I mean, look, I mean we know that one in five people who are LGBTQ in this country avoid healthcare cause they face discrimination.

We are a leader in our state.

I believe that in January we'll begin to collect sexual orientation and gender identity data and intake forms in hospitals and healthcare facilities.

That is a huge step in the right direction because immediately it gives a person a message that your sexual and gender identity matter.

And here at Rutgers, what we're doing right now is we're building the sexual and gender minority institute that you can imagine as a place that does research and policy, but also provides a place for people in New Jersey to be able to get information about where they need to go for care.

So it is about putting it front and center.

It is about normalizing LGBTQ health and LGBTQ health is just health.

And that's what we need to focus on.

And we are slowly making good steps.

- You've been listening to, watching Dr. Perry Halkitis, Dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health.

He has a new book coming out.

And when that comes out, Perry, make sure you join us again and we'll explore this issue further.

And most importantly, on behalf of the public television community, we thank you for all the public service you have done and the important information, accurate, relevant, timely, even when it's changing information about incredibly important public health issues, most specifically COVID.

Thanks Perry.

- Thank you Steve.

Thank you Steve.

- All the best.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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