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Former surgeon general Jerome Adams wants to see change in public health

By Ethan Sandweiss

Posted October 6, 2022

Jerome Adams interview

Appointed by former governor Mike Pence in 2014, Adams led the Indiana State Department of Health’s responses to Ebola, Zika, and HIV. (Devan Ridgeway / WFIU/WTIU)

Former U.S. surgeon general Jerome Adams will be taking up a brief residence at IU’s Kelley School of Business.  

As the Poling Chair of Business and Government, Adams wants to help students bridge the communication gap between economy, policy and health.

“What I've learned is that business students don't know the medical and health side. And medical and health, public health students don't know the business side,” Adams said. “So, I get to be the Rosetta Stone, I get to translate one into the other.”

An Indianapolis anesthesiologist, Purdue professor and WISH-TV medical expert, Adams is an active participant in Indiana’s public health community. He served as state health commissioner from 2014 to 2017.

As surgeon general under former president Donald Trump, Adams experienced firsthand the difficulty of applying science in a political space. He believes communicating clearly with the public is crucial.

“I and most everyone else who has been involved in the pandemic got caught up in that buzzsaw, where I would say something about masking, and people would interpret it as a statement about Biden or about Trump, when I was literally truly just talking about masking,” he said.

As state health commissioner, Adams convinced a reluctant Mike Pence to endorse Indiana’s nascent needle exchange programs, which he said became a model for surrounding states.

“I often say stigma kills more people than fentanyl does. Because stigma prevents those people from being willing to come forward because of the treatment that they get,” Adams said. “But it also prevents far too many individuals from being willing to offer the remedies and treatments that will reduce their harm and can save their life.”

Adams takes a socially minded approach to public health. He believes that economic opportunity and social welfare are the best prevention for health problems in marginalized communities.

Read more: Abortion bans could have far-reaching impacts on the Black community in the Midwest

“It's about understanding what people need to create high opportunity communities where they can make healthier choices,” Adams said. “If we can create those high opportunity communities, then more people will make healthy choices without us having to mandate them.”

Adams hopes his background can help students realize their own potential as changemakers.

“I love speaking to students, because I want them to understand that I grew up poor, and black, and rural. And I made it to the point where I was standing next to and advising the most powerful man on the planet.”

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