Harris Contos received both his BA in Economics and DMD degrees from Tufts University, and his MBA in Health Care Management from Wharton. His healthcare career has been wide-ranging including hospital administration, public health program management in tobacco control and elder driver safety, and in community water fluoridation, considered one of the “Ten Great Public Health Achievements of the 20th Century” by the CDC (and which RFK. Jr. seeks to reverse, being one of the “Countless Incompetents of the Trump Administration”).
More recently, he has been involved in two population health management initiatives: the first in developing an innovative model preventive dental health program for Medicaid beneficiaries (principally children) aimed at intercepting dental cavities early on through preventive, therapeutic, and behavioral measures, the “upstream” focus intended to achieve better oral health outcomes for beneficiaries at significantly reduced cost to Medicaid programs. Once demonstrated, the model can then be extended to the organization, financing, management, and improvement in outcomes across the spectrum of dental care delivery.
The second is in developing a comprehensive, integrated county-wide program aimed at environmental noise control, noise pollution being deemed a public health hazard, one with significant detrimental medical effects, by the American Public Health Association and termed “the new secondhand smoke.” Here much of the challenge lies in the recognition of the “disease vectors” and applying appropriate treatments, which lie more in enforcement of up-to-date laws based on up-to-date scientific and medical findings than on more traditional measures such as vaccinations and removal of contaminants from the air or water.
He continues to plug away at his book, “From Plato to Platelets: Essays in Health Policy.”
Contact Harris at: [email protected].