256 - A Good Time to Be Born: A Conversation with Dr. Perri Klass
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2021
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
150 years ago, it was common—even expected—that children would die, and tragedy struck families from the poor to the rich and powerful. Dr. Perri Klass, a pediatrician and author of A Good Time to Be Born, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the incredible scientific, public health, and social movements that made child mortality so rare in the United States. They also discuss why disparities persist and how today's parents, despite being "the luckiest in history," are not any less anxious about the safety and well-being of their children.
KEYWORDS: child health; social determinants of health
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 3, a Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:12.8 | I'm Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. |
| 0:20.2 | Our goal is to bring scientific evidence |
| 0:22.4 | and experience to the public health news of the day through informative interviews with scientists, |
| 0:27.8 | community leaders, policy experts, public health officials, clinicians, and more. If you have |
| 0:33.9 | ideas or questions for us to cover, please email us at public health question |
| 0:38.7 | at jhhhu.edu. |
| 0:41.1 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:47.4 | Today, it's a special episode of the Public Health On Call book club. |
| 0:52.2 | I speak to Dr. Perry Class, a pediatrician, New York Times columnist, and professor of journalism |
| 0:58.5 | and pediatrics at New York University. |
| 1:01.9 | Dr. Class is one of my favorite writers and one of my favorite teachers in pediatrics. |
| 1:06.9 | Her new book is called A Good Time to Be Born, How Science and Public Health gave children a future. |
| 1:14.7 | It tells an amazing story. |
| 1:17.3 | Let's listen. |
| 1:18.5 | Dr. Perry Class, I am so excited to be talking to you on the podcast. |
| 1:23.7 | You are one of my favorite writers, one of my favorite pediatric teachers, |
| 1:27.0 | and I just so totally loved your new book, A Good Time to Be Born. |
| 1:31.9 | How are you doing? |
| 1:33.3 | I'm fine, and I'm so happy to be here. |
| 1:36.5 | So in the book, you take us back maybe 150 years to a time in not just the United States but in the world where it was |
| 1:47.9 | common for children to die. And one of the things which shocked me when I thought about |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.