>> thank you for joining us here. today is may 6, 2024. and besides leading one of the most important organizations in the world taking care of the health of the united states and the world, i just want to let you know how tough it has been to compete against mandy and one

of the leading scorers of public health in north carolina. as may of you we have the institute of public health at g.w. every life is precious and driven the world and the economy for the last 200 years. we're 10 months in to the assignment. what has surprised you? and what hasn't surprised you in

these 10 months? >> thank you for having me here and opening up this conference and discussion about public health. i think we got to know public health in a new way through the pandemic and we are in a new moment. and i think we realize that the health and security work and our economy are linked. and we see it in big and small ways in the last number of ways. as c.d.c. is turning a new chapter and how do we meet this new moment, we need to be able to respond whatever health threats are out there, whether that is chronic disease or a virus. i spent a lot of my time the past few weeks on avian flu. we need core capacity to respond to those health threats.

these are things that take time to buildup capacity. the laboratory, diagnostic capacity, the work force and response capability. what i'm trying to make sure that we are in the new moment. and lots of amazing tools of the innovation that has been going on and make sure we are investing in this work. >> so the demographics of the world we are in today have changed so dramaticically and the are in subsaharan africa. nigeria has far more children than all the children born in north america, europe, et cetera. and i know you spent time visiting ethiopia, kenya,

zambia, et cetera. why have you spent so much time visiting these countries? >> the important work of protecting the country's health starts abroad making sure we can identify and stop health threats before they come to the united states. i have been in ethiopia and seeing more and more cases of measles and haven't been able to visit kids as much and that has a direct impact to the united states. we are seeing more cases of measles and because of international travel and the level of international travel. so those are the important work or the work back to the avian flu and looking to genetics all over the world and be able to identify it and stop it at its source and working hard that we

are forward deploying the folks we need internationally to protect us here at home. >> so i don't think everyone has had an opportunity to visit the c.d.c. security is very tight. and i wrote about it that visits to c.d.c. and it was an emotional experience for me to be in that c.d.c. museum and see an individual who had been kept alive with polio and iron lung for a number of years he lived in that. my father had had polio. and it's hard for the world to see what goes on in the c.d.c. it's hard to get security clearance to visit it. if you were to communicate and let people understand one of the

things that one of the things that struck the group we brought there, was the situation room. they think the situation room at the pentagon or the white house but the situation room monitoring things all over the world. there are people at the c.d.c. that in any emergency have their bags packed to go. so let's talk about the view of the c.d.c. that you can share with us today. mandy: sure. c.d.c. -- our mission is to protect health and improve lives. and we are a small but mighty team. i will say that it is something -- we have to be a team for. we're doing a lot of that work. we do have a lot of visibility. but we wouldn't have that visibility unless we had partners to make sure that we have eyes, ears, people, to be able to respond to whatever the health threat is. and we've made a lot of progress

over the course of covid. i think going into that, we did not have the visibility we wanted. we didn't have the diagnostic capabilities. we've made a lot of strides. but we have more work to do. and i want to make sure that folks who are thinking about how do we keep our economy strong, how do we keep our work force healthy, that they think about c.d.c. and public healthed a large -- public health at large. because if we don't invest in our public health security, everything else can get shaky on top of that. what we're tri-ing to do so help folks understand how we are moving into this new moment, learning the lessons of the past, turning our data into action more quickly, communicating clearly, and making sure we're investing in those core capabilities that, again, we need everyone's help in this. because we know that protecting health and improving live, that's a big job.

we're grateful for this conversation and these kinds of forums to be able to do that. michael: so people in our conference here, in 2024, in may, own or control over 3,000 companies. they have tens of millions of employees. and i think if you were discussing with them the reason for partnership, access to data, how they can help you and how you can help them. mandy: good, well, thank you for that opportunity because i think we absolutely need to focus on the employees right in front of us. i think businesses, of course you want to have a healthy work force that's productive. and so thinking about the health and well being of them from the very beginning but also particularly if you're a large employer and you're self-insured, right, it's dollars and cents. having a healthier work force

means more money that you get to use on other parts of your business. so i think there are tons of things that businesses can do. very basic, right. many of you have been holding flu clinics for years. i hope this fall it will be a flu and covid vaccine clinic. we're already taking steps to update the covid vaccine late they are year and we have to live with it. but these are tools we have. how many of your workers are out each and every winter because their kids get r.s.v.? again, a loss of productivity. opportunity. thinking about how do you promote vaccination? that's an easy one. there's also things like mental health. how do we work together on improving mental health of our communities? so i think there's a lot of ways that businesses can think about, the health and well being. but they also need to be advocates for public health. we can see how in a moment a virus can bring us to our knees.

and so just like we need to invest in the military protect us, we have to invest in public health to protect us as well. michael: the challenges, let's talk domestically now. we know that if you get on the subway in manhattan and go toward the bronx, that you lose life expectancy every minute. and it's 10 years shorter in a 20-minute ride. and so defining your life expectancy by the zip code you were born in. and it's not just new york. chicago. a 15 to 20 minute ride will shorten the average life exapt tansy. maybe the most extreme in the country is in baltimore. where you can go into a wealthy suburb whose life expectancy may

be 15 to 20 years more than in the inner city. how do you deal with the differentials? and getting this into our communities? mandy: we certainly know it's a complex issue. there's no one solution. but why c.d.c. is focused on, in addition to being ready to respond to any health threat, we're focused on two other areas. one is improving mental health. we lost 100,000 people to overdose and 50,000 to suicide last year. the other part is supporting young families. the reason we focus on young families is that, that's the part of our lives, 0 to 10, that's when your lifelong patterns of health are determined. so we really want to make sure mom is having a healthy pregnancy. that our kids are getting vaccinated. our kids are food secure. they're housing secure. and that they are getting off to the best start in life no matter the zip code. we also have to care about mom and tad's health, preventing

diabetes, heart disease, stopping smoking. that focus on young families is really important. i think this is where the business community and public health is so much shared alignment there to work on particularly if you think about young families. michael: so vaccines. as we've been focused on building the center in washington, d.c. over the last 10 years, across to from the white house and treasury, we have told people, we are so surprised how people don't really fully understand what that -- what vaccines have done to the world. and the people that created those vaccines, worked on those vaccines and obviously in some cases we've seen challenges to taking those vaccines today. how do you see our ability to communicate the value of these

vaccines, one, and how do you see our ability in the future to create or accelerate the creation of new vaccines? mandy: vaccinations have completely revolutionized how we're able to think about protecting health. incredible advancement, even the fact that we were able to go from where we are at the beginning of covid, to having a vaccine so quickly just in a huge scientific marvel. and it gives us more platforms to build upon going forward in the future. but i think the core that we need to get to is even the best made vaccines, if it sits on the shelf it does us no good. we've been focused on how do we think about the trust building for folks to understand vaccines, ask questions, but also to make sure we're combating misinformation. i think that this is again about getting more voices into the conversation. trust is not built overnight.

we have to make sure we're linking to trusted voices that can understand issues. we have to be answering questions. and we have to make this personal. i do. i'm a mom of a 9 and a 12-year-old. two daughters. and i try to talk about what i do for my own family. i think it starts there. many of us could have that individualized, personal conversation. it's going to take time to do that. but i think it's important, it's foundational. i think ultimately builds us toward a healthier country. michael: i want to touch on another area. over the years, in our various medical foundations, we have interacted with a number of leaders from the military. particularly when they've been diagnosed with cancer or some other life threatening disease. one of their shocks is the

medical care versus the data they have available to them in the military to make decisions. the challenge is, how are you moving the c.d.c. today, take advantage of a.i. and other things, once you get the data, how are you bringing the health care and industry up to the level of some private industry or the military? mandy: data is absolutely critical if we're going to protect the health of this country. we've made some progress. but i need help from congress and others to continue to make progress, both for resources and authorities. but right now, i've challenged our health across the nation, our e.h.r. partners to really invest here with us. because we can do better in terms of data interoperability than we're doing right now. and public health has to be at

the table for. that most of my career actually was not spent many public health. it was spent on the health delivery side and i think we have learned how silos were not our friend. health delivery was over here, health information was over here, our data didn't talk to each other. in north carolina i led through the covid crisis. one of the things we had to stop doing was stop relieving -- receiving lab data by fax machine. we have moved past that. there's been a lot of investment. but we have to keep going. we are focused this year on getting more electronic case reporting. this allows for faster identification of those health threats. we can do it. the technology exists. we just need to use it. as far as a.i., we already are thinking about whether the really important use kays for a.i. for public health, think about all the tai ta that's out there and how do you detect

signal to noise, how do we use large language models? we're not just looking at e.d. syndromic data, which we have for 90% of the country, which is great, but how do we look at what's happening online, korchtion social media that might identify for us a problem that's happening in a community? lots of opportunity in the future. i'm hopeful for the future but we have to invest. and make sure that we are working together as one team around data. michael: what you might not recognize with mandy, she was perfectly situated, one hour from d.c. and one hour from c.d.c. headquarters in atlanta andra league. she's been perfectly bridged to support both worlds. thank you for joining us. mandy: thank you, everyone. [applause]