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October 17, 2022 – The U.S. has lots to be taught from Costa Rica.
That message got here by loud and clear in a hearth chat with former Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada, held October 13 at Harvard T.H. Chan Faculty of Public Well being.
Alvarado took workplace in 2018 on the age of 38 and stepped down final Might, on the finish of his constitutionally restricted time period. He’s at the moment serving as a professor of apply at Tufts College’s Fletcher Faculty of Legislation and Diplomacy.
Alvarado guided Costa Rica by the COVID-19 pandemic, which the nation was capable of climate nicely resulting from its robust common healthcare system and in depth community of main health care clinics and vaccination websites. Alvarado additionally made climate change a prime precedence, launching a Nationwide Decarbonization Plan with the aim of attaining internet zero emissions nationwide by 2050.
“Costa Rica is an instance of how a small nation can reach tackling nice challenges—and turn out to be a worldwide mannequin,” Dean Michelle Williams stated as she launched Alvarado to a small group of college and college students for the fireplace chat.
Talking on the occasion with pupil Cornelius Rau, who’s working towards a grasp of science in epidemiology, Alvarado acknowledged that politics tends to reward large, flashy bulletins and investments over the quiet and painstaking work of investing in public well being.
“The perfect actions you may soak up public well being aren’t essentially correlated with a number of spending. They’re easy issues like reminding folks about hand washing, vaccination, and the way to not let standing water accumulate” to keep away from attracting the mosquitoes that unfold dengue, he stated. “For a politician, it may be higher to inaugurate an enormous fancy hospital.”
To maintain his give attention to proactive investments with long-term dividends, Alvarado stated he usually reminded himself of a Chinese language proverb: “The perfect time to plant a tree was 20 years in the past.” He considers investments in public well being the equal of planting seedlings throughout Costa Rica. “In 20 years, perhaps somebody will say ‘Effectively executed!’” he stated, drawing laughter from the room.
In actual fact, as Williams famous in her introduction, Costa Rica’s investment in public health started in earnest within the Seventies with a concerted effort to design a system that prioritized main and preventive care. The federal government created devoted public well being groups in each neighborhood and constructed high-quality clinics even in essentially the most distant rural areas. Successive campaigns centered on essential points together with maternal mortality, nutrition, sanitation, and vaccinations. “It has been an astounding success,” Williams stated.
At the moment, life expectancy in Costa Rica approaches 81 years. Within the U.S., against this, it’s at 76 after dropping sharply the final two years.
“We now have lots to be taught from Costa Rica relating to well being care coverage and administration,” Williams stated.
Alvarado confused the significance of recognizing well being—and well being care entry—as a “primary proper.”
He additionally talked at size concerning the essential must transition away from fossil fuels to deal with local weather change. “All of us have heard that there’s a tradeoff between local weather and progress,” he stated. “That’s a dogma. It means the one means society can develop, thrive, and prosper is thru fossil fuels. [If that’s true], we’re already doomed.”
Alvarado referred to as on public well being school and college students to problem that typical knowledge and talk the financial in addition to the well being and environmental advantages of investing in renewable energies. “Remodeling your complete society [through decarbonization] — isn’t that one of many biggest enterprise alternatives there may be?” he requested.
Requested to share some recommendation with Harvard Chan college students, Alvarado urged them to establish their ardour and make that their guiding star. “It’s essential to [follow] that with all of your braveness,” he stated. “Change is feasible. If a small nation like Costa Rica can do these items … you can also make good change occur, too.”
photograph: Kent Dayton
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