To Recognize the Zebra - How to characterize future health threats

by Christopher Eddy, M.P.H., REHS, CP-FS

What the world does not need is another lecture on risk. In fact, I have little interest in risk: in our forthcoming publication (Eddy, Sase 2023),* we focus on the consequences of foreseeable health threats, rather future disasters/crises that will be man-made, natural, and intentional in origin. We emphasize that risk is a probabilistic notion that almost always is impossible to predict with much success at achieving the target of global public health done well, prevention. Issue Number 1 will present prevention discussion.

*A Retrospective of the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: An All-Hazards Emergency Management and Public Health Crisis Cycle Using Lessons Learned From the COVID-19 Pandemic (forthcoming March 2023, on the 12th anniversary of the disaster)

“If you hear hoof beats, don’t expect Zebras,” is an oft-repeated phrase in medicine that warns new students not to let their imagination lead them errantly. It may have been true in 1970, though exactly descriptive, in reverse, of what we learned in the existential COVID-19 Pandemic — we must be more imaginative about emerging health threats, allowing planning…