The worst enemy of public health is war, according to Prof. Hagai Levine, the chairman of Israel's Association of Public Health and the former head of the health committee of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
“Security is very important,” Levine stressed. “Israel has to defend itself. But if we can provide a peaceful future without war, it will be great for the public health of Israel.”
Levine made the comments during a recent ILTV Podcast recording, where he said the health of Israeli society has “deteriorated.” After more than two years of war, he explained, Israelis smoke more, experience higher levels of addiction, engage in less physical activity, and often skip routine medical examinations.
Moreover, while Levine said that “now the focus has to be on recovery,” Israel still lacks a national rehabilitation plan.
Levine said he attempted to present the idea of such a plan to members of parliament and to the health minister, but the proposal fell on deaf ears. He attributed this in part to the uncertainty surrounding the current government.
“No matter who is the next government, I think it's very important to have a national rehabilitation plan that reflects the health needs, but also housing, education and security,” Levine said. “We need something specific to the uprooted communities in the South and the North, for the bereaved families, for the wounded and obviously, for the hostages and their families. We need this specific, dedicated rehabilitation plan for them.”
According to Levine, even an imperfect plan is better than none at all.
“Even if you have a bad plan, you need to have a plan,” he said. “There is no one solution like a magic bullet that can heal everyone, but we have to take some steps.”
As a scientist, Levine said he believes in monitoring, surveillance, and data gathering, followed by adjusting policy based on what the data shows.
He also emphasized that public health is not limited to physical mechanisms alone. It includes social and mental well-being as well. In Israel, he noted, research has shown that resilience increases through community and friendship. Israelis, he said, have strong social ties, will help if someone falls in the street, and benefit from unity that can help the country heal.
Levine outlined a guiding formula for professionals responsible for public health: modesty, professionalism, and humanism.
Israeli leaders, he said, must first embrace modesty.
“We don't know how to treat Israelis nowadays,” Levine said. “It's a totally new era of people coming out of the war, out of the ambiguous loss of worrying about the hostages. We the professionals don't know how to treat it, so we need to be modest and to learn all the time what's working and what’s not.”
He added that professionals must also systematically collect and analyze data.
“We need to define the data that we need in order to rehabilitate the country and the people,” he said.
Finally, Levine stressed the importance of humanism, placing people at the center of decision-making.
“We are on a bridge. We can fall. It can collapse,” Levine said. “It is in our hands to determine what will be next.”
Watch the full conversation: