Harassment online.

Harassment in person.

Threats of violence and even violence itself.

In the last year, amid the pandemic, public health workers have experienced more direct attacks than at any time in the previous century.

I'm Lindsay Smith Rogers, producer of Public Health on Call.

This week, as part of National Public Health Week,

we're bringing you a special four-part series with episodes excerpted from a webcast from last month.

The webcast was produced in collaboration with the Association of State and Territorial

Health Officials, known as Asto, the National Association of County and City Health Officials,

known as NACO, and the Big Cities Health Coalition. In this series, we will explore the extraordinary

challenges facing the field of public health

in the COVID era.

We'll hear from health officers on the front lines about their experiences, from researchers

about the scale of the problem, and from the leaders of Asto, NACCHO, and the big cities

health coalition about what is to be done.

In part two, we hear from Dr. Beth Resnick and Polani

Moy lead researchers on the issue of the challenges facing public health officers during the

pandemic. They also put these current challenges in the context of longstanding underfunding

of critical public health infrastructure. Please note that the presentation they reference

is linked in the episode description.

Hello, I'm Beth Resnick.

And I'm Pawani Marie.

...