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PBS News Hour - Segments

Former CDC director offers an insider’s ‘Formula for Better Health’ in new book

PBS News Hour - Segments

PBS NewsHour

Daily News, News

4.11K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dr. Tom Frieden has spent his career as a disease detective, New York City’s health commissioner during a tuberculosis outbreak and CDC director during the Ebola crisis. In his new book, “The Formula for Better Health,” he shares lessons about how to close the gap between awareness of health challenges and the actions needed to solve them. Ali Rogin speaks with Frieden for more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0

This podcast is supported in part by the New England Innovation Academy in Marlborough, Massachusetts,

0:05.5

where today's students become tomorrow's innovators by discovering their passions and purpose while preparing for what's next,

0:12.1

reimagining education with a future-focused curriculum, entrepreneurial mindset, and real-world application,

0:18.1

currently enrolling grade 6 through 12, day and boarding students.

0:22.0

Learn more at NEIacademy.org.

0:25.0

It isn't hard to find advice for how to live a healthier life. It's working that guidance

0:30.5

into your daily routine that can be the most difficult part. Turning those suggestions for

0:35.4

better health into effective policy is the challenge public health

0:39.2

professionals grapple with every day. And right now, officials who work on these issues are under

0:44.4

even more pressure than usual. Just this past weekend, the White House fired about 1,300

0:50.2

staffers at the Centers for Disease Control before rehiring half of them.

0:55.0

Former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden's new book, The Formula for Better Health,

1:00.0

takes on these challenges.

1:02.0

In it, he shares lessons from his own public health career about how to close the gap between

1:07.0

awareness of health challenges and the actions needed to solve them.

1:12.1

Dr. Frieden, thank you so much for joining us.

1:14.7

This book spans your experiences over your entire career, which you spent as a disease detective,

1:22.0

as New York City Health Commissioner during a massive tuberculosis outbreak.

1:26.3

You were CDC director during the Ebola crisis,

1:28.8

and then you also witnessed the COVID pandemic as a former CDC director. Why was it important

1:35.8

to you to write this book at this time? I began writing this book a decade ago in the world's

1:41.9

first Ebola epidemic when West Africa was struggling with health

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