As public health has come under unprecedented attack this year, APHA has been the voice of the resistance. Even as opponents have attempted to cut public health programs, funding and staff and reject lifesaving science, the Association has chalked up a host of major legal wins and has not held back at speaking out.

On Wednesday, Nov. 5, APHA is bringing its might to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. In conjunction with public health partners, APHA is hosting the first Rally for the Public’s Health. The event — which is open to open to anyone who supports U.S. health and safety — will feature a host of legislators, scientists and advocates speaking up on why public health investment is the key to a healthier country. 

The Nation’s Health spoke to Susan Polan, PhD, APHA’s associate executive director for public affairs and advocacy, about what's in store for the ground-breaking event.

What's this rally about, in a nutshell?

This may be the first time that there's been a rally in D.C. solely dedicated to public health. There have been lots of rallies for specific components of health, but not just focused on public health alone.

This is an opportunity for public health people and allies to stand up and say, “It's important. It's getting decimated. We need to do better.” People need to understand the impact of what's going on and how it's going to affect not just some people, but all of us. 

Everyone is going to be hurt if we do not reverse some of the activities that this administration has taken. They are undermining the public's health.

Why is APHA having this rally? 

APHA sets the locations and dates of its Annual Meetings years in advance. Serendipitously, APHA 2025 is located in D.C. this year. Because of everything that's going on, we knew we had to stand up publicly. 

What we hope is that people who are at the rally will hear, understand, learn and be motivated to take action to protect the things that are keeping them healthy. We have a wide array of speakers, some of whom are kind of classic public health, some of whom are more policy, some of whom are people impacted by the policies. We'll be talking about what this all means and how we can do better.

Who are some of the speakers confirmed so far?

We have (state House) Rep. Justin Jones from Tennessee. We have Aryn Melton Backus with Fired but Fighting, a former CDC employee. We have Dr. Nandi Marshall, who is APHA’s president-elect. We have Dr. Bob Morris, who is an epidemiologist who's been really trying to bring folks together around the concerns about what (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary) RFK Jr. is doing, and has hundreds of thousands of signatures on a petition calling for RFK Jr. to resign or be or be removed from office. 

Is APHA partnering with anyone on this?

We're partnering with the Brady Group, Families US , Public Citizen, Center for American Progress, Stand up for Science. And that's just some of the names. 

Public health has come under attack at the federal level this year. What are some of the priorities the rally will focus on?

We're going to focus on the importance of the public health workforce. We're going to focus on the importance of protecting people from preventable disease — including vaccines and the role that they play — how to make sure that people have the opportunity to be healthy and avoid chronic disease. So things like access to food, access to care, opposition to gun violence.

There will be a fair amount of people talking about the role that the administration is playing and how problematic that is, and specifically the role that RFK Jr. is playing in terms of what's happening to public health and the workforce.

Rallies and marches happen often in Washington, D.C. How is this event different?

It's the opportunity to take the potentially 12,000 people who are at APHA's 2025 Annual Meeting and Expo and engage them in something that is very much about activism, and that's not always where our Annual Meeting starts or ends. That's a really big piece of it. 

We're bringing people to the (National) Mall to say, "You can make a difference, and you should stand up and say your piece and talk about the important work that you're doing." It's about talking to the public and about talking through media and social media. 

But it's also about talking to our own folks and giving them the opportunity to stand up in a way that they haven't necessarily had before and show that they are being represented.

APHA has been a leader in speaking out and fighting back against recent attacks on public health. How does this rally build on that momentum?

APHA, in a number of different ways, has been kind of standing alone as a really powerful voice. We have the opportunity to speak out because APHA does not have restrictions some other organizations do. But this is an opportunity for all of us to come together. 

APHA is coordinating and organizing, but it's for all of us to be able to come together and say, "We believe in the work that is going on. We believe in the work that APHA is doing. We are here supporting it. We want to move it forward by doing our own activism."

Thousands of public health professionals, students and supporters will be in town Nov. 2-5 for APHA 2025. What can this concentration of public health strength bring to the rally? 

It can show the full scope of what public health is and what we work on, speaking with one voice, which is not something that we always do. It's not something that we even always do at the Annual Meeting. 

The theme of APHA 2025  is “Making The Public’s Health a National Priority.” This is an opportunity for all of us to come together and say, "Public health is critical to everyone's health, no matter who we are, no matter what we do, no matter where we come from, no matter where we sit." We believe that.

Why should people attend this? Who should attend?

Everybody. We're not limiting it to people who are at the Annual Meeting.

This is an opportunity for us to come together as a field and with a focus on the work that we do. It is hopefully the first step of many in which public health professionals, public health allies, public health partners take that step outside their comfort zone and say, “We're here. We are waving our white hats because that's the work that we do.” 

What messages do you hope attendees take away from this event?

That we have power in numbers. That we are a force to be reckoned with.

Some of the ways that we can be that force is if we work together, and if we put our own agenda aside toward the bigger picture — that anybody can be an ally and anybody can be an advocate. 

No matter who you are, no matter what your job is, as an individual citizen, you have the right to protest. You have the right to stand up. You have a right to be an activist. That is a critical piece of what we need to be doing right now. I hope people walk away with sense of urgency and the desire to take next steps as public health advocates.