Hot study area: public health

Professor Peter Curson

“We live in an era of emerging infectious diseases,” says the Director of the Health Studies Program at Macquarie University, Professor Peter Curson. Over the next 10 years we can expect to encounter a lot more.

The recent emergence of infectious diseases such as SARS and bird flu is only the beginning, according to the Macquarie University epidemiologist.

So what training will those who wish to work in the field of public health need? According to Curson, interdisciplinarity is the key.

Curson is trained in human geography, demography and public health. Those who will successfully manage future pandemics will, he believes, have to work as he does at the junction of a number of different disciplines. They will need to take insights from biology, medicine, law, ethics, politics, psychology, animal ecology—and so on.

“We now need interdisciplinary groups of people who understand how things link together and affect one another, not always in a causal way,” he says. “We’re facing invisible enemies which can threaten the viability, economy and security of states.”

Public health research at Macquarie

Macquarie University has experts in public health across a range of departments and centres, from biological sciences to health and chiropractic, and human and physical geography. Their specialities include topics such as climate change and human health; occupational and environmental health regulation; health policy and health promotion; and vector-borne disease, just to name a few.

Curson’s own expertise lies in the history of infectious disease. He has spent 25 years reconstructing how people and governments have behaved during past epidemics in Australia, which is important to understand when planning for future outbreaks.

What past pandemics show

Over a 50-year period last century, no-one could predict where deadly polio would strike. Hospitals refused to take in sufferers; schools, theatres and swimming pools were closed; outsiders and even neighbours were shunned; and relatives of victims were ostracised. Only when a vaccine was discovered did the panic subside.

In the United States, by contrast, government and the media worked with the public to manage fear, raise the level of awareness, and suggest coping strategies. The March of Dimes and the Poster Child campaigns involved everyone in overcoming this common threat.

Now citizens need to know what the risks are and prepare to protect themselves, says Curson.

“There should be open discussion with all levels of the community about risks. The government will only protect you up to a certain point. At the moment we feel as if our lives are managed by so-called experts, but we have no input or control.”

For further information, contact Professor Peter Curson at peter.curson@mq.edu.au

The Department of Human Geography website is at www.es.mq.edu.au/humgeog/