COVID Leadership Lessons with Dr. Tomás Aragón

The Other 80

We'll be unpacking lessons from the COVID 19 pandemic for many years to come. Dr. Tomás Aragón, who leads public health for the State of California, joins us to discuss what he learned guiding America's most populous state through this challenging and disruptive period.

We discuss:

• That public health’s deepest power lies in the ability to help diverse groups reach consensus under great uncertainty
• How California redeployed an army of census workers to support the COVID response
• The biggest opportunities to use AI for public health
• Three great book recommendations: “How Emotions Are Made” by Lisa Feldman Barrett, “High Conflict” by Amanda Ripley and “Fifth Discipline” by Peter M. Senge

Dr. Aragón shared insights about leadership:

“The other thing is to really appreciate the importance of human psychology. It is so incredibly important … You're going to come up against people who are going to “resist”. I don't think of it as resistance. I just think they're being human. That's just all it is. People have variability in how they process information … And so rather than seeing things as resistance, you really just see it as part of the diversity of ingenuity that exists in an organizational culture.”

Relevant Links

Dr. Tomás Aragón’s UC Berkeley Public Health profile

Dr. Tomás Aragón’s GitHub blog

Article on Bay Area pandemic response: The epidemiology and surveillance response to pandemic influenza A (H1N1) among local health departments in the San Francisco Bay Area

“How Emotions Are Made” by Lisa Feldman Barrett

“High Conflict” by Amanda Ripley

“Fifth Discipline” by Peter M. Senge

About Our Guest

Dr. Tomás Aragón, MD, DrPH, has served as the director of the California Department of Public Health and the State Public Health Officer, since January 4, 2021. Prior to coming to CDPH, he was the health officer for the City and County of San Francisco and director of the public health division. Dr. Aragón has served in public health leadership roles for more than 20 years (communicable disease controller, deputy health officer, health officer, community health and chronic disease epidemiologist), including directing a public health emergency preparedness and response research and training center at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.

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