2019 Year in Review

Dear PHP Readers,

Happy Holidays!

The picture above depicts Public Health Post’s global readership in 2019, and I think of it as a brain scan, a visualization of our neuronal connections, of the regions that we touch.

In 2019, hundreds of thousands of readers consumed PHP’s Research, News, Viewpoint, and Databyte articles on diverse topics ranging from mental health, aging, and food policy to technology, religion, and violence. Our top 10 most-read articles of the year covered criminal justice, reproductive health, art, the environment, and immigration. New writers from across the globe–from industry, academics, journalism, and government–wrote for us on the topics of our time: guns, opioids, HIV, suicide. Visitors to our offices graciously allowed us to interview them. We spotlighted research on novel intersections in public health like prescription drugs and race; hijabs and depression; fake news and real quality of life.

If you’re one who has been reading and subscribing to PHP since 2016, thank you. If you’re new to PHP, you can spend 60 seconds with Public Health Post to learn about how we feature new articles about the state of the health of the population every day. You can also download Public Health Post Radio on Spotify to hear a curated playlist of songs that we believe reflect, in some way, the broader conversation we’ve joined on health and social justice. In 2020, you will be able to stream monthly episodes of PHPod, a podcast brought to you by Public Health Post.

This year, PHP transformed again with a new Student Advisory Board, five PHP Ambassadors, a data visualization expert, an editorial coordinator, and a marketing and communications guru. Jen Beard, our Associate Editor, continued to make all their words better. Melissa Davenport, our founding Managing Editor, took her tireless work as an artist-turned-leader in health communications to another site, and left Nicholas Diamond, our fantastic new Managing Editor, with big pictures to fill.

Our top 10 most-read articles of the year covered criminal justice, reproductive health, art, the environment, and immigration. New writers from across the globe–from industry, academics, journalism, and government–wrote for us on the topics of our time: guns, opioids, HIV, suicide.

We congratulate our current cohort of graduate student PHP writing fellows for completing their PHP Fellowship as they move on to finish their graduate studies at the Boston University School of Public Health. Thank you to Oluwatobi Alliyu, Jori Fortson, Julia Garcia, and Greg Kantor for helping us to start new conversations about health via their articles. Their work will be generously referenced in a new book I’ve written with Sandro Galea, out in May, titled Pained: Uncomfortable Conversations About the Public’s Health.

Nick, Jen, and I welcome our fifth cohort of graduate student PHP writing fellows: Edward Alexander, Gray Babbs, Tasha McAbee, and Patrick Williams. We are excited to have their bylines published across the website, social media, and the PHP Friday Roundup newsletter.

PHP will continue to educate and entertain in 2020. We resume publication on Monday, January 6, 2020 after our Winter publishing break. Again, thank you for reading, writing, and subscribing to PHP.

Do you have thoughts, questions, comments, or topics you’d like us to cover? Please send me your ideas at mdstein@bu.edu.

Wishing you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year,

Michael Stein, Executive Editor