Adriana Garriga-Lopez: Social Justice Conscience About Public Health

Adriana Garriga-Lopez, PhD, Kalamazoo College, touched on the conversation some experts have that the Zika virus could be considered the new STD. While she feels the disease itself is not a very acute disease, the scary part about it is really what are the longterm neurological implications. As such, she believes we need to think about public health in a smarter way -- it shouldn't just be about emergency management. She considers this to be one of the biggest lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak. "You can helicopter in a bunch of money, doctors, nurses, and resources, but you're still dealing with a social field, which is saturated with health problems at the most basic level."