What a Review of Taylor Swift's New Album Is Teaching Me About Public Health

Three Things Thursday

May 02, 2024

Three Things Thursday highlights three things I am paying attention to as an epidemiologist each week. For those of you who have been around since the beginning of Three Things Thursday (it’ll be two years in July), you already know this. For those of you who are new to Epi Matters, you should know — I read a lot.

Each morning I begin my day by reading the news. I start with STAT News and then move on to The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Google News. I end my day with a news summary from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Throughout the day, I get email updates from ProMed. And throughout the week I get updates from WHO, CDC, Johns Hopkins, Emory, and other leading health agencies. I keep a running list of stories to highlight on Three Things Thursday, examples to use in my classes, topics that should be included in other blog series, topics to cover on the TV news, and events that I need to continue to pay attention to. I take a lot of notes, have a lot of tabs open in my browser, and am constantly emailing important stories to myself.

This week avian influenza, H5N1, continues to dominate the news cycle.

However, what captured my attention this week was this (re)review of Taylor Swift’s new album by Oliver Darcy, which was published last Friday on CNN.

In his article, Oliver Darcy writes —

“…after I rushed through the 120-some minutes of personal storytelling and synth-pop, I found myself in agreement with the critics. Initially, “Tortured Poets” failed to resonate with me. It did, indeed, feel a little tired. As a life-long fan of Swift’s music, I wasn’t impressed.
One week later, my view of the album has entirely reversed. After spending more time with the two-hour sonic feast, more methodically touring through its subtleties and nuances, I am ready to declare that it is one of Swift’s best works yet.”

Oliver Darcy’s reassessment and reversal of opinion struck me deeply. Below are three quotes from his piece on CNN and how I see both his change in attitude and observations of our current cultural norms saying something about public health.

Trust me — whether you are a Swiftie or not — you need to keep reading.

Hoping this post helps to educate and empower you
to be healthy and create healthy communities.

Oliver Darcy’s (re)review of Taylor Swift’s TTPD album includes three quotes that those of us who care about public health, preventive medicine, and healthy communities need to pay attention to…

#1 —

“…it takes more than a day to get one’s arms around a 31-track album like “Tortured Poets.” Swift’s album demands time to be fully appreciated. It cannot be devoured at the speed of TikTok.”

The same can be said for public health problems. We cannot fully appreciate or understand the scale, scope, or severity of a problem at the speed of TikTok. Take H5N1, for example… in the past week, USDA has mandated that sick cows be tested for influenza, milk (both raw and pasteurized) be tested for live virus, more cows have become sick, cats have become sick, and there are reports of additional human cases (that are unconfirmed). At least 400 news articles have been published in the past 96 hours on H5N1 (according to a quick Google search for ‘H5N1 2024’).

To fully understand or to “get one’s arms around” H5N1, demands time.

To fully understand, the safety of our milk supply, the dangers of raw milk, the risks (health and financial) dairy farmers are facing, models being developed depicting the worst-case scenario, or to understand why avian influenza vaccines will be available very soon, one needs to spend hours each day reading the news, taking notes, critiquing what has been reported, asking questions, seeking answers, and then synthesizing what information is available.

It is a full-time job.

Understanding health threats and
working to create healthy communities demands time.

#2 the public —

“…has grown accustomed to absorbing information in quick bursts. Social media platforms have rewired minds, shortening attention spans and pushing people into the habit of consuming entertainment designed to enthrall for only a few seconds. If something doesn’t immediately click with an audience, it is swiped off screen. Away it goes!”

This makes the work of public health and preventive medicine so much harder.

#3 —

“Swift’s new work demands more time to fully absorb. It cannot be assessed in an instant. It’s not fast-food. It’s a multi-course meal that stipulates the person sit, with undivided attention, and focus on what is before them. Absorb the smells and the different ingredients designed to stimulate the palate. And then, take time to digest and really ruminate on the experience.
It is unfeasible to appreciate the stories of heartbreak, romance, frustration and conquest that Swift cleverly narrates through two hours of unrelenting poetry. But that is where Swift shines. It is in the intricate, layered storytelling. And it is implausible to fully grasp the serpentine journey she leads listeners on with a quick cursory listen.
Unfortunately, that clashes with the modus operandi of the moment.”

I would like to rewrite this quote for all of us who care about or are working to create healthy communities for all —

The work of public health demands more time to fully absorb. It cannot be assessed in an instant. It’s not fast-food. It’s a multi-course meal that stipulates that people sit together and work collaboratively, with undivided attention, and focus on what is before them. Absorb the smells and the different ingredients designed to stimulate the palate. And then, take time to digest and then take action to create healthy communities.

It is unfeasible to appreciate the stories of injustice, injuries, violence, infant mortality, and preventable deaths that public health wants to prevent through policies, programs, and interventions in a world that believes that health is defined as the absence of disease alone. But that is where public health shines. It is in their work to create healthy communities for all and to redefine ‘being healthy’ to include healthy friends & family, healthy neighbors, healthy communities, and healthy environments. And it is implausible to fully grasp the complexities of this new definition of health, preventive medicine, epidemiology, and public health with a quick cursory listen.

Unfortunately, that clashes with the modus operandi of the moment.

I want to applaud Oliver Darcy for (re)listening to Taylor Swift’s new album. And making note of its complexities and the time it takes to really listen to and appreciate what she has done through the 31 tracks. He sets a standard for how to admit one was wrong and to explain what has happened.

Ultimately, he taught me a lot about how hard it is to work in public health right now.

For that I am grateful.

Now to get back to work as Oliver Darcy describes it… I need to slow down, take in all of the information that is coming in, attempt to make sense of it all, and put out actionable steps to create healthy communities for all.

There is also a subtle call in Oliver Darcy’s piece to get off of social media. To return to long-form news and updates. To put an end to multi-tasking. To focus.

I hope we can all heed that call.
And work collaboratively to create healthy communities.

Questions? Thoughts?

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