Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher was in Rochester Thursday to help present awards that focus on community health.
Satcher is no stranger to Rochester. He completed his medical residence at URMC in 1972, and his career included serving as Surgeon General from 1998 to 2002. He still comes back to Rochester from time to time, as he did this week for the annual Community Health Improvement Awards that were named after him.
In an interview with WXXI News, Satcher talked about what he sees as one of the biggest community health challenges across the nation, and that is infant mortality, and looking for ways to improve those statistics.
“Not just the mothers but the family, the community, how do we assure more health pregnancies . We need to make sure that every pregnant woman has access to quality pre-natal care.”
Satcher says one problem the U.S has is that we spend too much on health treatment and not enough on prevention.
“Hopefully in time that’s going to change, we’re going to invest more in community health, more in getting people healthy, and that’s going to be much more cost effective than the system we have now.”
Satcher does say that Rochester is one of the leading cities in the U.S> when it comes to community health.
"The Satcher Awards for Community Health Improvement went to Dr. Michael Keefer, an AIDS researcher; Dr. AminaAlio, an assistant professor in public health sciences, and Precious Bedell, a project health counselor.
