815 - How To Run For Congress As A Public Health Official (Even If You Lose)
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2024
⏱️ 18 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
About this episode:
Dr. Jirair Ratevosian was a high level global health official in the State Department—a job he left to pursue a Congressional seat in California's 30th district. In this episode, he details what it takes to run for Congress (including knocking on more than 30,000 doors) and how he talked about public health with voters. Spoiler alert: He didn't win, but he did learn a lot and is hopeful that Congress can again be a place where people go to solve problems.
Guests:
Dr. Jirair Ratevosian is an associate research scientist at Yale, an infectious disease fellow at Duke, and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Host:
Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a faculty member in health policy, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland's Health Department.
Show links and related content:
-
What Running For Congress As An HIV Activist Has Taught Me—The Body
-
Congressional Hopeful Jirair Ratevosian on Armenia, LGBTQ+ Rights, and the American Dream—Advocate
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:31.0 | Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith-Rodgers, producer of public health on call. |
| 0:35.8 | Gerard Radavosian is an associate research scientist at Yale, |
| 0:39.9 | an infectious disease fellow at Duke, and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School |
| 0:44.6 | Public Health. He recently resigned from a top job in global health at the State Department |
| 0:49.6 | to run for Congress in California's 30th district. Spoiler alert, he didn't win. But he did learn a lot, |
| 0:57.8 | and he joins Dr. Josh Darfstein today to tell his story. Let's listen. |
| 1:02.7 | Dr. Jarre Radavosian, thank you so much for joining me today in Public Health On Call to talk |
| 1:08.1 | about your run for Congress. Hi, Josh. |
| 1:11.2 | Thanks so much for having me. |
| 1:12.9 | So let's start with your background in public health. |
| 1:16.6 | Tell me a little bit about yourself. |
| 1:18.9 | Sure. |
| 1:19.8 | Let's see. |
| 1:20.3 | I've always been interested in, I'd say, medicine. |
| 1:24.3 | It was late in undergrad that I discovered public health. I kind of fell into it, |
| 1:29.6 | accidentally, really. This was about 20 years ago. And a lot of schools at the time didn't have |
| 1:36.7 | public health as a subject matter. I went to UCLA. And while there was a school of public health, |
| 1:42.8 | I didn't really know about public health. |
... |
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