By Orna Herr, Communications Officer (Education) at the British Science Association
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Pivotal moments and sliding doors
All of our lives are made up of pivotal moments that shape us and take us down one path or another. Sometimes those moments are only obvious in retrospect, other times they feel seismic as they happen.
Professor Kevin Fenton CBE, a public health physician and infectious disease epidemiologist, and the new President of the British Science Association, has led a life perhaps filled with more pivotal moments than most – some of which intersected with the biggest global health crises of our lifetimes.
At the British Science Festival 2024, this year held in East London, Kevin sat down with journalist Kirsty Lang to discuss his life, career and hopes for the future of public health.
“Being raised in Jamaica gave me a sense of self”
Kevin was born in Glasgow in the 1960s to Jamaican parents – his mother was doing midwifery training in Glasgow at the time. When Kevin was around 18 months old, they moved back to Jamaica, perhaps the first key moment in his life and one that he remains grateful for.
“Being raised in Jamaica gave me a sense of self, but also a sense of opportunity. When you’re in a country and everybody looks like you, your prime minister, your GP, your teacher, the priest, the sense of possibility that you can be anything is what I think growing up in that environment gives you.”
His trajectory, Kevin and Kirsty mused, would likely have been different had he been raised in 1960s Britain.
His childhood was marked not just by the opportunities he saw represented by wider society, but by his parents, both of whom worked in science. His dad was a chemistry teacher and his mum was a nurse.
“Being with [mum] on the wards and seeing that, being exposed to health from a very early age. Those experiences still shape who I am today.”
“I’ll never forget the public health people who came”
Growing up, Kevin aspired to become a pilot but, as he told Kirsty, “this is where dreams and reality collide”.
Kevin is the oldest of four children – at aged 15 his parents explained that the expense of sending him to flying school (he’d had his eye on Miami) would not have left enough money to invest equally in his siblings’ futures. He had the grades to get into medical school, and so to medical school he went.
“Even to this day when I go home and see mum and dad, we laugh about it and remember that conversation because it was one of those pivotal conversations that you have, and it set me on this [public health] track.”
Does Kevin look back and wish he had become a pilot after all? Perhaps not so much.
“When I was in my 30s, living in the US, I went to flying school. I only managed two lessons…I thought, you know what, I’m too old for this! That dream has sailed and I’m happy to be a doctor and I’m so glad.”
It was at medical school, The University of West Indies, that Kevin first encountered public health practitioners, and his world changed again.
He explained to Kirsty that when you start medical school, specialists come to welcome you and to ask you to think about studying their specialty – neurosurgery, cardiology, etc.
“But I’ll never forget the public health people who came.”
“The organised effort of society to improve health and tackle inequalities”
The public health practitioners had a passion, energy and message that Kevin could not ignore. He remembers they told the young medical students:
“If you chose [public health], you will have the ability to change lives not of one person at a time, but of hundreds of thousands and millions of people.”
This was in the mid-80s, around the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, one the worst public health crises in recent times, and one that Kevin would come to work closely on, improving outcomes for some of the worse-affected communities.
“[The public health practitioners] spoke about social justice, they spoke about poverty… they spoke about the fundamental injustices that were driving the AIDS epidemic. And it just turned my world around… And that again, another pivotal conversation, and another pivotal moment. I really had to change course.”
As the conversation heads further into the topic of public health, Kirsty asked Kevin how he defines it:
“It’s the organised effort of society to improve health and tackle inequalities, and to make a difference to the lives of individuals and communities which last between generations.”
This, Kevin explained, allows him to work with colleagues on transport, air pollution, housing, architecture and myriad other things that are involved in creating environments that promote health. Communicating with the public is also a part of his job not to be underestimated.
“My work with social scientists is equally as important, understanding narrative, how to nudge people, how to communicate, how to inspire, how to empower is equally important.”