When it Works, it's Invisible

Katelyn Jetelina writing for her excellent Your Local Epidemiologist:

One of public health’s biggest challenges is that when it works, it’s largely invisible. This isn’t the case in other fields. For example, in medicine you can see the impact of a surgery. In the drug industry you can see the immediate effect of a prescription. In public health, we don’t see what we prevented. For example, how much do you really appreciate seatbelts on a daily basis? Seeing what public health prevents is nearly impossible for the untrained eye. So, this is what we aren’t seeing right now…