Policy & Practice | December 2021

president‘smemo By Tracy Wareing Evans

Top Insights From a Moment in History

L ooking back at this year, I am struck by an overwhelming sense of having lived through a decade in a span of just 11 months. I often find myself reflecting on the historic moment we are living in—wondering how my now 14-year-old son will one day describe this time to his grand kids. Together we have witnessed a massive vaccine rollout to an ongoing worldwide health emergency that continues to have economic and social repercussions across the globe, espe cially as COVID-19 variants emerge. At the same time, communities have been impacted by severe weather, gun violence, and other social strains, many of them further exacerbated by the pandemic. We have seen the ongoing fight for racial justice, both advancements

the brilliant voices that contributed to APHSA’s thought leadership platforms, including our second year of Leadership Corner and new podcast, Our Dream Deferred. These themes deserve much deeper attention than I am giving them here, but I hope they will prompt your own reflections on lessons and opportunities we can build from together in 2022. We must do more to center power structures with people, not systems. It is not enough to understand that lived experience is lived expertise; nor is it enough to give space for the voice of people who experience the systems we run. Centering people most affected by poverty and adversity requires being involved and having equal power and

and setbacks, showing up in all aspects of our three-branch system of government. At the beginning of the year, we witnessed an unprecedented attack on our U.S. Capitol, and continue to experience the fallout from it. Through a Presidential transition, we have been introduced to new leaders, goals, and strategies. Most recently, we saw passage of a historic infrastructure bill, and states and localities are now making key decisions on its implementation. As historian and On Tyranny author, Timothy Snyder, reminds us—it’s all one history. What we do with it next is up to us (listen at https://bit.ly/ APHSApodcast ). In that spirit, as we head into a new year, I am sharing some of my own insights. Many of these are drawn from

See President’s Memo on page 26

Image via Shutterstock

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December 2021 Policy&Practice