BEYOND
BELIEF Rebuilding and preparing Puerto Rico for the next storm
Photos by US Department of Defense, 2017.
José Cordero had seen the news reports. When the lingering bands of Hurricane Maria finally gave way to blue skies, the enormity of the storm’s impact on the island of Puerto Rico was laid bare. Beginning in the southeast corner of the island, the storm had slowly crawled across the land, dumping unprecedented amounts of rain and battering homes with 155 mile per hour sustained winds. Puerto Rico was devasted. As soon as the first non-emergency flights could return to the island, Cordero, Patel Distinguished Professor of Public Health and head of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics, was on one. A leading epidemiologist in the area of prenatal health, his research for the past decade had been dedicated to improving the health of mothers and babies in Puerto Rico.
But Cordero was not only returning to a research site. He was returning home. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Cordero left home to further his training in the burgeoning field of prenatal genetic testing. Eventually, Cordero transitioned his work into epidemiology, dedicating his career to identifying the factors that can lead to preterm births, birth defects and infant deaths. In 2005, Cordero was asked to return home to help Puerto Rican health officials figure out what could be behind an unprecedented spike in preterm births. Between 1990 and 2007, Puerto Rico experienced a doubling in preterm birth rates, and no one knew why. “To me, it was an eye opener,” said Cordero. “It became evident that the usual suspects like access to healthcare, maternal education, none of those explained why we had such an increase in preterm births in Puerto Rico.”
PUBLIC HEALTH 2019 MAGAZINE
13
