"Despite enormous advances in medical science and public health education over the last century, access to health care remains a dominant issue in American life. U.S. health care is often hailed as the best in the world, yet the public health emergencies of today very often echo the public health emergencies of yesterday: the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 and COVID-19; the displacement of the Dust Bowl and the havoc of Hurricane Maria; the Reagan administration's antipathy toward the AIDS epidemic and the lack of accountability during the water crisis in Flint, Michigan"--