Health equity: access to quality services and caring for underserved populations.

Barriers to access to quality services and caring for underserved populations are a call to action for researchers and other key partners to achieve health equity. In order to accomplish this, several key partners play important roles. More participation of younger generations, women and people of color from different contexts should be encouraged and facilitated. This editorial serves to present this journal issue that includes the articles of young women from low- and middle-income countries. Different methodologies are used to demonstrate the problem of access to quality services and care in a comprehensive way. After understanding the public health problems using an equity lens, we need to implement evidence-based interventions to improve the health system response.

The future of public health education: the post Covid-19 era.

The Covid-19 pandemic revealed once again the unsustainable social inequities that resulted in a disproportionate number of illnesses and deaths among different social groups. Public health must take its leading role in public policy to advance the social determinants that affect the health and well-being of populations. Public policy and the workforce must continue to prioritize population's wellbeing and health equity by challenging the status quo. Thus, it is a pressing necessity to evolve and transform public health education by developing and integrating the culture of agile change, embracing structural transformations and shifting to a lifelong learning approach. The paradigm shift in public health education should emphasize interprofessional and intersectoral approaches, the development of human and social competencies, a lifelong learning perspective and the implementation of new pedagogical and technological strategies. A holistic curricular approach which highlights the importance of public policy and the right to health and social justice should also be emphasized. This transformation must occur taking into account/considering faculty development, investment in technology, flexibility for accreditation, and collaboration with employers in various sectors. Public health education must evolve in order to remain relevant and adequately prepare and equip the leaders and practitioners that the world requires. The current crisis is an opportunity to renew and redefine public health education.

A Statement of Commitment to Zero Tolerance of Harassment and Discrimination in Schools and Programs of Public Health.

The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health convened a Task Force on Zero Tolerance of Harassment and Discrimination in 2019 to develop a policy statement and strategies for addressing harassment of all types in institutions offering public health education. We outline the premises and scholarly foundation for the development of the Statement of Commitment to Zero Tolerance of Harassment and Discrimination, the statement itself, and future plans for realizing the aspiration established in the statement. The development of this living document is predicated on the belief that it is the core responsibility of academic institutions to build the knowledge and that it is the responsibility of leaders, namely deans of schools of public health and directors of public health programs, to lead in building the shared knowledge and insist on the practices that create institutions for a better future free of harassment and discrimination. Our statement is informed by the knowledge that aggressions in the form of harassment and discrimination undermine the health and well-being of individuals, the public, and populations.