Washington, DC – March 2, 2022 – Pres. Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union Address of 2022 last evening. The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) recognizes and affirms Biden’s pursuit to fundamentally improve the health of our nation’s people.
The health education profession has a crucial role in achieving the goals outlined in the president’s speech, as the profession has consistently promoted policies that achieve health equity, reduce health disparities, and expand health literacy.
Amidst the deadliest global pandemic in a century, SOPHE shares the president’s confidence that the United States is well positioned to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
We are encouraged by Biden’s substantive commitment to the key principles of public health mitigation, such as vaccination uptake, access to antiviral therapeutics and accessible COVID-19 testing.
However, SOPHE and its members call on Congress to act quickly to prevent future pandemics by overhauling our public health infrastructure and by recognizing the role that climate change plays in increasing the potential of future pandemics.
Pres. Biden’s commitment to address the ongoing opioid use disorder and cancer epidemics in the United States aligns with SOPHE’s longstanding mission to achieve health equity in the United States.
SOPHE calls on all of our health education partners to support the funding of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, an entity that would have considerable capacity to achieve biomedical innovations to reduce cancer mortality.
Similarly, we are pleased that Pres. Biden recognizes the unfortunate and often overlooked youth mental health crisis in the United States. In fact, SOPHE’s 2022 Advocacy Summit will focus specifically on youth health equity because of the stark and troubling indicators on the rise of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation among youth.
We look forward to working with our stakeholders, partners, Congress, and the administration to achieve all the aforementioned goals.
SOPHE calls on its members to contact their congressional representatives to underscore the role of health education in maintaining the nation’s progress in combating COVID-19 and in addressing the ongoing opioid use, cancer, and mental health epidemics.
