Patricia D’Antonio, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania
New York Academy of Medicine (New York, NY)
Thursday, September 14, 2017 6:00 pm EDT
1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York, NY 10029
Mandated by the Affordable Care Act, public health demonstration projects have been touted as an innovative solution to the nation’s health care crisis. Yet such projects actually have a long but little known history, dating back to the 1920s. Dr. Patricia D’Antonio’s newest book, Nursing with a Message: Public Health Demonstrations in New York City, reveals the key role that these local health programs – and the nurses that ran them – held in influencing how Americans perceived their personal health choices. Assessing both the successes and the failures of these nurse-run health demonstration projects, D’Antonio traces their legacy in shaping the best and the worst elements of today’s primary care system.