When COVID hit, public health leaders often said, “There was no playbook.” But was that really true?

Decades earlier, during the AIDS crisis, America’s public health system went through a trial by fire—learning hard lessons about how to communicate amid uncertainty, adapt to evolving science, and work with communities instead of against them.

Flash forward to COVID, and many Americans say they lost trust after experiencing what they saw as a top-down, dismissive approach from public health leaders. They say their questions and concerns about mitigation efforts and science were often met with rigid messaging, outright dismissal, and even censorship.

In today’s episode, we sit down with Dr. Reed Tuckson, a public health leader and former Commissioner of Public Health for Washington, D.C., during the height of the AIDS epidemic. He reflects on what that era taught him—and what it might still teach us about rebuilding trust today.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off this week)

Guest:

Dr. Reed Tuckson, former Commissioner of Public Health in Washington DC; founder, Coalition for Trust in Health and Science

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