I've begun volunteering here. As you can see the site is horrifically out of date due to some major staffing changes. Projects I'm undertaking:
website
Make a mission statement for the Northampton Board of Health. Explain how the BoH delivers the ten core public health services. (Do they? I'm not sure. It seems like the emphasis has been primarily on enforcement. Restaurant inspections, etc.) I've been looking at other local health department websites for inspiration:
Way too slick! I'm limited to a plain text entry field for each component of the page. Although buried, this is a short and simple mission statement.
A manageable amount of information. Too much text to read, though... they have the same weird Board of Health / Health Department parallel that Northampton does. It's so confusing. I sat in on the most recent Board meeting here in Northampton and it was both fascinating and obtuse. Of course they were debating the new hookah bar...
They also have a "Department of Health and Human Services" and a separate "Public Health Council". I wonder if this structure is throughout Mass, or New England, or the country... It also seems that their DPH doesn't have responsibility for housing or building inspections, something that seems to be a very big part of Noho's DPH responsibilities.
Health literacy is another objective - can the info on the website be accessible to someone who's not a health professional? Someone who doesn't have a college degree? Someone whose first language isn't English?
I'm excited to see that there is a logo for LPHDs, although it will probably make very little difference in the overall project. Along with the "This is Public Health" campaign maybe one day my family will understand what it is I want to study...
standards
Take part in the National Health Performance Standards Program (CDC). This looks like a huge project and one that might be targeted towards much larger departments than Northampton's. Still, the CDC has provided a helpful checklist which includes getting flip charts and refreshments for the meetings.
Take part in the Profile of Local Health Departments Survey (NAACHO). An exciting find from NACCHO: With an automated Disaster Designer Wizard, creating your next tabletop exercise will be fast, fun and FREE!
regionalization
Connecticut, Georgia, and Utah have already begun offering incentives for local health departments to regionalize. Small towns don't always have the resources to meet the ten core components of public health. Economies of scale and shared resources can make this possible. That's according to the Massachusetts Public Health Regionalization Project (BU), and again, NAACHO. Western Massachusetts stands to gain a lot from regionalization incentives. Noho might be part of a pilot program...
unnatural causes
'Is inequality making us sick?' Well, yeah, but here's a great documentary explaining exactly what this looks like and how communities are addressing health disparities. I've only seen part of the series which aired back in March, but the transcripts are available online and Noho's DPH is hoping to do a screening soon using some of the ideas in the Action Toolkit. One provoking comment from the first episode:
ICHIRO KAWACHI (Epidemiologist, Harvard School of Public Health): Health care can deal with the diseases and illnesses. But a lack of health care is not the cause of illness and disease. It is like saying that since aspirin causes a fever that the lack of aspirin must be the cause of the fever.
Yeah, I've been busy as hell. There's only one way I'm going to get from here to there, though... and it's not by playing Kongai...
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