The COVID-19 pandemic, together with ongoing public health crises such as the uptick in opioid overdoses, the rise in obesity-related health conditions, and declining life expectancy, has highlighted the urgent need for greater public and scholarly understanding of public health in the United States, including its origins and development. To help facilitate a greater historical perspective on public health, in the summer of 2025 Marian Moser Jones and Jim Harris will lead a National Endowment for the Humanities funded Institute for Higher Education Faculty on “PANDEMICS AND PUBLIC HEALTH CRISES IN UNITED STATES HISTORY.” While immersing educators in gripping historical case studies and demonstrating innovative teaching methods, the program will empower 30 participants to produce syllabi, lectures, and interactive pedagogy focused on public health crises in historical perspective; and to think more deeply about the ways that institutional, political, economic, cultural, and ideological factors have influenced efforts to protect the public’s health and prevent disease in America over the past 250 years and on how insights on the past can shape the future of public health.