HJNO Jul/Aug 2026

DIALOGUE 16 JUL / AUG 2026 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS passed and PE was eliminated . . . PE is expensive and they have to hire extra staff and they needed more time to teach No Child Left Behind standardized tests, and they couldn’t afford to give up that extra hour or 50minutes for kids to just play, and I just couldn’t disagree more. Editor Is it still eliminated? Greenstein That’s a good question. I’d have to go back and check. I don’t know that it’s a mandatory subject the way it was 15 years ago. Editor Oh, we need to get that changed. Greenstein Well, let’s start a revolution then. Editor How has the role of the surgeon general changed what you do, and where does your authority begin, and where does hers end and how do you balance that? Greenstein Yeah. I mean, so I think we’re lucky to have an elevated position of surgeon general. Surgeon general is a Cabinet-level official, is appointed by and reports to the governor, and I think it raises our capabilities to think about things that are clinical, that have public policy implications, that can spend full time in focus, and today, we’re fortunate to have a surgeon general that’s an ob-gyn that can really help lead a lot of the focus on improving birth outcomes and women’s health around the state. So I think we’re still in the developmental phase of how the Office of the Surgeon General operates. When Ralph Abraham was here, he essentially created the model and now Dr. Evelyn Griffin is taking the baton and moving forward, and I think it’s a great leadership position. She should be reminding all Louisianians about a variety of healthy behaviors, and I think it will continue to mature as an office as we move through time. Editor Is there a question you wished I would have asked? Greenstein Yeah. I mean, I’ll just say one thing. It’s not that I wish you had asked, but I think there’s so many elements of what we guide the public to do. We talk about public health, and I think about how we have to stay one step ahead of what is challenging, and so I’ll give an example. We’ve been focused for decades now on reducing the number of people that begin smoking, and focused on people that are smokers to quit, and we’re winning that battle actually. We have the lowest — these national data were just released . . . the lowest percentage of American smoking since, I think, recorded history, but we’re also struggling in addressing issues related to say, vaping and underage vaping, and that’s what’s on the curve ahead of us right now. Editor Are you counting smoking as vaping in that situation? Greenstein Well, there’s the thing. I think about tobacco ignition smoking in one category and then vaping in another. So if used correctly, vaping can be a significant tool in the smoking cessation program, but then if it becomes rampant for teenagers, and this variety of additives included, then we’re just backsliding on the overall aggregate health outcomes. So we’re continually, right now, doing a lot of programming in stopping vaping for underaged people, and to have the proper use of vaping. That would be to get people to quit regular tobacco ignition smoking, and that piece has been very challenging for us. On the behavioral health side, we’ve been running programs to help people that have addictions to gambling and have made good progress. And then what happens is we get online gambling and now we have every- thing from FanDuel and a variety of gam- bling from one’s cell phone that makes it so easy, and that’s become challenging for us. And just as we’re getting our hands around that, the rise of prediction markets hap- pens, which is outside the scope of regula- tory impact and taxation to be able to help manage those that are addicted. So we just continue to see the role of public health in society’s evolution, and it’s challenging, but we continue to do it. And it’s just good for the public to know that these are issues that we go to work every day to try to address for better health outcomes for all Louisi- anians, yet we still are focused on the most traditional ones. One that I’ve been talking about a lot as the weather has gotten hotter this year is safety around pools. We still see the accidental death rates for kids zero to 15. Drownings are one of the leading causes of death and almost all of them are prevent- able. They happen in pools where kids are unattended. They happen also in pools not where the kids and family are, but pools that are unprotected, so they don’t have a fencing around it to keep children that can’t swim out. So the message of course is for adults to keep their eyes so closely on kids in and around pools, and when you have the chance, please help your kids learn how to swim. That in itself is in our die later cat- egory. We don’t want to see any drowning deaths this year because we want parents and adults just to be on absolute standby whenever there’s water around. Editor It must be soul crushing how that happens. Greenstein Couldn’t even imagine it. Editor No. Thank you again for taking time today. Anything else? Greenstein No, that’s it. I feel like we did cover a ton of ground, and boy, your questions have just got me so fired up to just go out there and just go so hard at this job. It’s just such an incredible honor to get the chance to do this again. n