Education

• The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated, in dramatic fashion, that many of the social and business constraints we thought were binding—about how and where and when work gets done, and to what ends—were far more malleable than we believed.
• We increasingly see a global community ready to act in unison to quickly mitigate, adapt, and create new value amid our refocus on health care. At the core of the international efforts in combating the effects of COVID-19 lay the institutions of Education and Health Care. Because of their significant potential role in enhancing health and long-term economic mobility in a community, disturbance to healthcare and education networks can seriously impact the welfare of society.
• Policymakers have recognized that achieving good health is tied to eliminating poverty and providing proper education.
• It has also been shown that the health condition of individuals can be an essential factor in their success at school and the workplace. Recognizing this interaction, many schools have partnered with hospitals in the U.S. to address students' mental health issues and other health concerns.
• Recent efforts in the U.S. have been geared towards aligning education and health metrics through the Healthy Schools campaign at a state level or through a partnership between the Healthy Schools Project partnered with Trust for America's Health and others.
• Emphasis has been placed on incorporating health metrics into education accountability systems and integrating education metrics into the healthcare system. Natural disasters, like COVID-19, significantly impact schools and hospitals and dramatically affect their interaction, particularly for highly interdependent systems.
• Grappling with climate change's enormity, complexity, and direness can be a grim affair. But if there is a silver lining, it is this: We have the tools and technology we need to head off the worst outcomes and a (narrow, closing) window to do so.
• Success is not principally about technical advances—it's about personal and systemic change.
• Collective action can realize rapid, effective outcomes on a planetary scale. We need only change the priorities, constraints, and objectives by which we evaluate actions. Very little is off-limits, and it's worth questioning every assumption.