The Invisible Shield

Pandemics and non-communicable diseases have claimed far more lives than all wars combined. In the fourteenth century, the Black Death wiped out two-thirds of Europe. As globalization dawned and trade routes opened, cholera swept the globe, killing half of those infected. Smallpox claimed as many as one billion lives before it was eradicated in the 1970s. The rise of industrial capitalism saw people dragged by the millions to cities and into factories, where their health statuses plummeted. Public health emerged in response. Thanks to its innovations, we are today able to breathe clean air, eat uncontaminated food, drink safe water, survive childhood in large numbers, live longer lives, move through our days untroubled by smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, malaria, tuberculosis, polio, measles, typhoid fever, and diphtheria. 'The Invisible Shield' gives viewers an unprecedented look at the field that makes modern life possible. Using vivid character portraits, interviews, and archival elements, we show that public health is a progressive and revolutionary movement, one whose successes have traditionally come from a broad, cross-disciplinary coalition of physicians, nurses, scientists, activists, reformers, engineers, and government officials, all working together to transform the conditions of society. Anchored by leaders in public health, including front line experts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, The Invisible Shield is a sweeping, vital, and unprecedented look at the field that makes modern life possible.