Key Takeaways
- Public health is facing real strain—but crises reveal what needs fixing and drive progress. The article emphasizes that today’s challenges (burnout, uncertainty, systemic weaknesses) are not new; historically, difficult moments have exposed gaps and led to major public health breakthroughs.
- This is a “clarifying moment” where new professionals are especially needed. Instead of being the wrong time to enter the field, it’s the right one—because meaningful change depends on people stepping in, questioning systems, and rebuilding what isn’t working.
- Public health ultimately advances because people choose to act. Progress depends on individuals staying committed to improving communities, pushing for systemic change, and addressing overlooked issues—even when the work is complex or frustrating.
Public health isn’t having an easy moment—but that’s exactly why this one matters. As new public health graduates enter a field shaped by crisis, burnout, and uncertainty, MPH alum Andrea Avendaño-Jurado, MPH, CHES, offers guidance and perspective on why this moment needs them most. Adapted from remarks she originally delivered at the 2026 Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society induction, this speech speaks directly to today’s generation of public health leaders. It’s honest about the challenges, clear about the purpose, and grounded in a belief that even in difficult times, public health moves forward because people choose to show up and build something better.
Why You’re Entering Public Health at the Exact Right Time
By Andrea Avendaño-Jurado, MPH, CHES
Let’s take a moment to be honest about where public health is right now. Public health is being tested and many of you probably feel it in your workplace, the job market, the media. For those entering the field, it may feel as though you are stepping into public health at a difficult moment.
But I would argue you are entering it at a clarifying one.
Because difficult moments do not just create strain…they reveal truth. They show us what has been overlooked, what has been fragile, and what needs to be rebuilt.
Public health has rarely advanced in comfort. It moves forward because people act when conditions are anything but easy. Think of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, where care advanced despite stigma. Think of cholera outbreaks that led to sanitation systems still saving lives today. And think of the COVID-19 pandemic, when communities worked in real time to respond, driving vaccine development and revealing how deeply connected our health truly is.
Each of these moments carried the same pattern. Sometimes history does repeat itself, but not as defeat, it repeats as a reminder that when systems are under strain, people still find ways forward and produce some of the field's most important breakthroughs.
Many of the issues we confront are systemic, and systems can be changed. But only if people continue pushing, questioning, organizing, and making others care. Public health has always depended on people who are willing to see what others overlook. This field asks us to sit with complexity, to question what is taken for granted, and to stay curious even when the answers are uncomfortable.
Because we understand how systems shape health, we know they can be changed. That truth applies not only to the communities we serve, but to this field itself.
But it makes sense if you feel angry, uncertain, frustrated, or even discouraged. Many of you came into this field because you believed something deeply true and deeply necessary: that people deserve better. That communities deserve to be healthier. That evidence, stories, and policy can come together to improve and even save lives.
That belief still holds true today.
I would add this: You deserve better too. If people deserve better, then we must also believe we deserve better. We deserve stronger institutions, greater support for this work, and a future where public health is valued as essential, not optional. You deserve to work in systems that value your time, your expertise, and your care. And when that isn’t the reality, it does not diminish the value of what you are building. It reminds us why this work matters.
I believe you all will help rebuild that.
Because public health needs people who hold onto humanity. It needs people who will speak up, challenge unfair systems, build trust, and refuse to accept preventable suffering. It needs people like you.
Carry forward the courage to ask harder questions and the humility to listen to communities, and the conviction to insist that health is a right, not a privilege.
Carry forward hope. Not as optimism detached from reality, but as a discipline. A choice to keep building, even when the work is hard.
When this field feels heavy, remember you are joining a long tradition of people who believed a healthier, more just world was possible and worked to make it real.
You do not carry this work alone. Support one another. Build a community that sustains you when the work is hard and strengthens you when the path feels uncertain. Public health moves forward through collective effort, including how we care for one another. Sometimes that, too, is public health. Showing up for one another so we can keep showing up for our communities.
Graduates, this field needs you. It needs your intellect, your compassion, your courage, and your refusal to settle for what is when you can help create what should be.
Because people deserve better. You deserve better.
And through your work, it will happen.