Mendoza on public health: You have to think about people’s lives
For the past three years, Dr. Michael Mendoza has led the area’s response to COVID.
You may not know that at the start of Dr. Mendoza’s career, he trained at San Francisco General Hospital, epicenter in the early days of the HIV epidemic.
Now, as the Monroe County Commissioner of Public Health, Dr. Mendoza is responsible for the overall wellness in the community.
I wanted to talk to Dr. Mendoza about his experience in caring for people with HIV and how that influenced his approach to guiding Monroe County through COVID and other aspects of public health, including sexual health.
We met for our conversation at the AIDS Remembrance Garden at Highland Park. The idea behind the garden was to commemorate and celebrate people affected by HIV/AIDS, and the setting gave us a common place to start our talk.
Dr. Bill Valenti, left, listens as Dr. Michael Mendoza, commissioner of the Monroe County Department of Public Health, shares how his experience caring for HIV/AIDS patients continues to influence his approach to public health. Credit: Matt Wittmeyer, Matt Wittmeyer Photography
The conversation covered many topics – how to promote sexual health and wellness, how people react in times of a health crisis and even the possible effects of climate change on public health.
In this first of three video excerpts, Dr. Mendoza talked about how behavior change as well as medication has made a difference with HIV and the transition of AIDS care from a specialty to primary care.
But other STIs have increased, and Dr. Mendoza talked about access to prevention, behaviors and an individual’s circumstances and history that affect their sexual health.
“I don’t know that this has been shown in a scientific way, but other STIs have increased in prevalence in the same populations and I wonder, I worry if it's because some of those behaviors have not been given the same attention. You know, condom use is down and syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia are up. It's hard not to wonder if there's a connection there,” he said.
To hear this conversation, click here.
Watch this space and Facebook for upcoming episodes in which Dr. Mendoza discusses the polarizing effect of pandemics and how social needs could launch the next one.