Analytical Comparison of Ancient Roman and Contemporary Nigerian Public Health Discourse: A Classical Epidemiology Approach

Roman public health infrastructure, particularly the aqueduct system, sewage management, and epidemic response documented in classical sources, constitutes a sophisticated civic health tradition whose analytical comparison with contemporary Nigerian public health discourse fills an important interdisciplinary gap. This study analytically compares ancient Roman public health concepts and strategies, as documented in classical texts and archaeological evidence, with contemporary Nigerian public health discourse and infrastructure challenges. A comparative analytical methodology was adopted, drawing on classical sources (Frontinus's De Aquis, Vitruvius Book VIII, Galen's medical writings, and Marcus Aurelius's pandemic governance as documented in the Historia Augusta) alongside analysis of Nigerian National Primary Health Care Development Agency reports, Federal Ministry of Health policy documents, and academic public health literature from 2018 to 2023. Interviews with eight Nigerian public health scholars at the University of Abuja and Lagos State University provided contemporary scholarly context. Findings reveal structural parallels in the relationship between urban infrastructure quality and epidemic risk management, the political economy of water access as a health determinant, and the use of public rhetoric to manage pandemic fear that are analytically illuminating for both historical and contemporary understanding. The study contributes an original interdisciplinary analytical framework connecting classical epidemiological thinking and contemporary Nigerian public health challenges.

Keywords: Roman public health, Nigerian health policy, classical epidemiology, comparative analysis, urban health