Awards honor some of our 2020 public health heroes

Just a few of the public health heroes honored at Tuesday night's APHA Public Health Awards Ceremony, from top: Anthony Fauci accepts the APHA Presidential Citation for his lifetime of service in shaping our nation’s response to the greatest public health challenges of the last 40 years, not the least of those being the COVID-19 pandemic; APHA Past President Camara Jones, a continuing voice for racial justice, accepts the Executive Director's Citation; Omar A. Escontrías, senior director of policy research at the American Dental Education Association, is honored with the Ayman El-Mohandes Young Professional Public Health Innovation Award for his work in Arizona, displayed nicely by the cacti in his Zoom background; and Sara Cody, health officer and public health director at the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department in California, shows off her 2020 Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Local Public Health Work given for her extraordinary leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can read about all the 2020 APHA Award winners in our news release. 

Congratulations, everyone! Thanks for all you do for public health and all of us.

As Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in accepting his award, "What you do each day makes life for individuals, families, communities and our entire nation safer, healthier and more equitable. Individually and collectively, your contributions are simply extraordinary. Thank you for your dedication to the common good. Thank you for resilience during this grueling COVID-19 pandemic. And thank you for your courage and upholding the guiding principles of public health that keep our nation strong."

Photos by Aaron Warnick, courtesy The Nation's Health.