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Contagion: Public Health Goes to the Movies

By: NWHF Staff | Posted on: September 12th, 2011 | Share:
Categories: Policies & Laws • Public Health

By Craig Mosbaek, CHP Contributor

The theater lights dimmed, and the contrasting health messages began: “No smoking in the theater,” “Buy candy,” and “Buy Coke.” 

Then Contagion begins.

The first part contains good information about the investigation of epidemics, including concepts such as incubation period and case fatality ratio.  As a public health person, I was entertained by the depictions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The deputy director (Laurence Fishburne) reminds an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer (Kate Winslet) to remember the Single Over-riding Communications Objective if she gets interviewed by the media.  This is straight out of CDC training materials.

The movie trailer includes this scene: A Department of Defense official asks, “Is there any way someone could weaponize the bird flu, is that what we’re looking at?”  Fishburne says, “Someone doesn’t have to weaponize the bird flu, the birds are doing that.”

There’s also a shout out to fluoride, where someone asks, “Could we put the vaccine in the water supply and reach everyone like fluoride?”

Government and public health officials come out well, though, when big money gets spent to address the epidemic, one government official shouts, “Is this coming out of your budget or ours?”  There is another nod to state/federal dynamics with discussion of the problem of collecting data from 50 separate state health departments to calculate national numbers.

The director, Steven Soderbergh, said in an interview that he now washes his hands more than before.

Another important lesson from the movie may be that we need increased funding for public health.

Dr. W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University was consulted on the movie.  He wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that concluded, “we need to recognize that our public health system is underfinanced and overwhelmed.”

As a public health person, I smiled or nodded in agreement more than the typical movie goer. 

I highly recommend this film to the public health community, but it has enough star-power, suspense, and action to appeal to all audiences.