Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, I have the high honor and a great pleasure to bring to
you the president of the American Public Health Association, Dr. Adewale Troutman.
Adewale: Good afternoon!
I am so pumped to be here this afternoon after a year of working as your president and after
that brilliant speech.
Often people say, you know it’s just hard to follow some people, and that’s a tough
act to follow.
But I’m sure I will do my best.
Before I start, I want to say that it was definitely my beard that helped the Red Sox
win the World Series here in Boston.
As we know, APHA – we’ve said this already – brings good luck to any city.
You remember we were in San Francisco last year, and we want to point out again the World
Series in two years in Chicago.
We want the Cubs fans to know that we are coming to help you.
Seriously, I want to acknowledge the honor bestowed on me by this great organization
to be president and say some thank yous.
My notes are out of order.
First I want to thank Donna Peterson, University of South Florida dean, who so diligently recruited
me to the best public health college in the university three years ago, and now so graciously
supported me in the presidency this year.
If Donna is here, I just want to make sure she knows I appreciate her so much.
And most recently, I’ve just been appointed as associate dean for health equity and community
engagement at the University of South Florida.
I also have a recruiting goal of 200 new public health students to USF, so I being very shameless
about this plug.
There must be at least 200 of you in this room that would be perfect for the amazing
public health programs at USF – sunny Florida.
Come on down.
I also want to thank my family, starting with my professional and personal life partner,
Denise Vasquez Troutman, who has continued to run our consulting company – the Troutman
Group, while keeping me together this year through sickness and health, in good times
and bad.
She sitting right over here, and I love you so much.
I want to shout out to my daughter [Anassa], who was with me last year when I won the presidency
in California, but is touring – if any of you have heard of this individual – with
India Ari this year.
Thanks to my other daughter [Nandi] who got her doctorate in public health from Georgia
Southern this year, and is now the best professor at Armstrong University in Savannah, Ga.
The son I never had, her husband Randall, and my grandson [Nasir Aday] – love that
middle name – is also here.
Denise’s children Laura and Rafael, who are not in attendance but who are here in
spirit, have always supported me.
Unfortunately my niece who is here at the Berklee School of Music, master musician,
couldn’t make it today, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned her name.
She’s here right down the street.
And what’s a thank you without your mother?
My mother who is 95 doesn’t fully grasp the gravity of this presidency, but every
time I call her on the plane before they tell me to shut my phone off, she tells me “Love
you, son.”
I want to send a special note of thanks to our soon-to-be president Joyce Gaufin for
traveling to affiliate meetings when I was unable.
Joyce, where are you?
Thank you.
Lastly, to my APHA family – Georgia, Ida, Vernon, Regina, and staff who coordinated
every appearance and was so supportive every step of the way.
Most of all – you, who trusted me to take the APHA agenda to almost 15 cities and around
the globe to three international destinations as the face of public health leadership.
So as I reflect on this year, it’s been a year of high expectations and a year of
significant health challenges.
My first travel was to Hawaii with Gerald Otah, who is our host in a beautiful state,
and my former APHA board member, Miley, who so passionately explained the inequities in
health status and cultural challenges of the native Hawaiian populations – very eye-opening.
Two months later I was off to Asia.
I led a delegation to Taiwan to see universal coverage in action, where virtually the entire
population has coverage and carries a smart card for efficient access to vital information.
It can in fact be done.
It blew my mind.
Unfortunately soon after my return, I was hospitalized with a septic knee and needed
surgery for a replacement.
A few months after that, tremors started in my hand, and I was diagnosed with early-stage
Parkinson’s disease.
Medical challenges I could have ever expected, but it was my passion for the organization
and the message so dear to my heart that kept me going.
After a few months of recovery, I was off again to about 10 other states in total from
Southern California to Montana to Washington state to Canada, and then off to Africa to
speak at the collaborative meeting of the Public Health Association in South Africa
and the new African Federation of Public Health Associations to representatives from 27 African
countries, carrying our message of health equity, social justice, and the right to health
and health care.
They spoke of public health leadership needs and pipelining.
Everywhere I went I spoke of my upbringing in the South Bronx, my early years in community
college, my 0.38 index in my first semester – 0.38, not 3.8.
It’s true.
Practicing emergency medicine, running health departments, and now academia – this poor
kid from the Bronx could have let my ZIP code determine my life expectancy, my level of
education determine my health, my environment to determine my occupation and my place on
the social gradient.
Social determinants were not a theory for me, but my reality.
At each appearance, it was important for me to show how we are all connected from SARS
to tsunamis, from the economy to war, we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.
We are all truly connected.
It was Martin Luther King that said “Of all the injustices, the injustices of health
are the most shocking and inhumane.”
With that in mind, as you know APHA has had three pillars of focus this year.
One – achieving health equity.
We stand firm on the principles of the right to health, social justice, and the elimination
of all forms of oppression and exclusion.
Number two – assuring the right to health and health care.
Our organizational beliefs, if lived up to two, require a certain understanding of the
inequities that drive hunger, poor health, and early death.
Injustice is at the base of that.
Injustice is insidious.
It twist its way into the fabric of society and chokes very lifeblood of primary victims,
which is in fact all of us.
We are all familiar with the dictum, “Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere,”
making it clear that we must all be involved in this end.
Number three – the rebuilding of the public health infrastructure.
I stand on the shoulders of so many who have gone before – those with true power and
determination.
Who stands on your shoulders?
Who will stand on your shoulders next?
The notion of the power of one lives in all of us.
We can change the world.
Malcolm X.
did it.
Martin Luther King did it.
Steve Jobs did it.
Harvey Milk did it.
Barack Obama is doing it.
Claude Jacobson Cambridge of BCHW is doing it.
Sawahi Jet in Florida affiliate is doing it.
Washington State is doing it.
We all have the power of one, and if we come together in creative movement similar to the
movements of civil rights and women’s rights, we can make a difference in health and make
health equity a reality.
Movements take collective consciousness, vision, determination, and risk.
Thank you.
We recognize this in fact does take a movement, but a movement based upon health equity, the
right to health, and most important – a stand for social justice.
Turn to your neighbor now, and let’s do a little church thing.
Say to your neighbor “I am the movement.”
Like you mean it – I am the movement.
Now turn to your other neighbor and say “The movement is now.”
I want you to go back to your organizations in your community, recruit others to join
this movement and work with this organization.
Let us stand shoulder to shoulder in this work.
As I wrap up and take my seat, my message to you is to take a stand for something.
Do something.
Do anything.
Consider yourself a leader who can be that difference.
I don’t you just to push the envelope.
I want you to tear it up.
All the risks I’ve taken in my life are based on what was best for my people, myself,
my children, my fellow man.
Life is about taking risk.
I read this all over the world, and I just want to share this with you before I sit down.
What better message than my last to share with you at this time.
To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose your feelings is to risk exposing yourself.
To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk their loss.
To love it is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life
is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing has nothing, does nothing, and is nothing.
You may avoid suffering and sorrow, but you simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love,
or live.
Chained by his certitude, he is a slave.
He has forfeited his freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
I invite you to be free, be the movement, stand shoulder to shoulder, bring about health
equity and social justice today.
Thank you very much.
I guess I’m done.
Thank you.