NCIPH 2021 Year in Review
2021 was an incredibly busy year for NCIPH. So busy that this Year in Review is replacing our usual Annual Report. Despite the chaos and challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused NCIPH professionally and personally, we are seeing silver linings in the clouds with the great work we continue to do with partners across the state. The importance of a strong public health system in North Carolina has never been more clear and has made us even more committed to achieving our mission of strengthening the capacity of our public health partners to support thriving, healthy communities.
Leadership Changes and Team Growth
In the fall NCIPH extended a fond farewell to our Director Doug Urland, who had been with NCIPH since fall of 2019. NCIPH was grateful to have Dr. Steve Cline, DDS, MPH step in as interim director. Steve jumped in immediately to analyze NCIPH’s role in public health practice with our external partners as well as internally within UNC Gillings.
The NCIPH Team also bid fond farewells to retiring team member Janet Suttie and team members who moved on to new and exciting opportunities: Erin Magee, Matt Simon, Elizabeth Thomas and Brianah Williams. At the same time, NCIPH brought on new team members Online Learning Specialist Danielle Butts, Quality Assessment Coordinator Rose Byrnes, Community Engagement Coordinator Destiny James and Strategic Approaches Coordinator Margaret Benson Nemitz. We also could not have succeeded in 2021 without the assistance of temporary team members Nicolas Gasquet, Alex Hoppe and Ali Zuercher; amazing UNC Gillings students Laurel Booth, Aaron Carpenter, Katherine Gora Combs, Ashley Cram, Maggie Cremins, Jack Dalton, Doruntina Fida, Alayah Johnson-Jennings, Jaclyn Karasik, Angelica Mejia, Liana Manuel, Matthew Romm, Leah Sadinski, Kirsten Siebenga, Gabriela Statia, Annamaria Laginna Vesely, Isabella Wood and Zhitong Yu as well as Bucknell University undergraduate student Sahana Paravantavida and N.C. School of Science and Mathematics high school seniors Ella Evans and Priya Patel.
Collaboration Around Public Health Practice
One of public health’s cornerstones is collaboration in the service of shared goals. 2021 was the start of some amazing collaborative work! UNC Gillings, as part of a schoolwide strategic planning effort, convened the Practice Task Force, which includes Interim Director Steve Cline. Director of Community Assessment and Strategy Amy Belflower Thomas is serving on the N.C. Institute of Medicine (NCIOM)’s Future of Local Public Health task force, co-chaired by UNC Gillings Professor of the Practice Dr. Leah Devlin. Additionally, Director of Workforce Training and Education Dr. Rachel Wilfert is engaged with innovative workforce development projects with the NCIOM Taskforce as well as the N.C. Association of Local Health Directors. We are confident that, taken together, all these initiatives will help spark great improvements in public health practice in 2022 and beyond.
Strategic Planning for N.C. Local Health Department Accreditation Program
Due to the tremendous strain on local health departments during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper developed executive orders that allowed the N.C. Local Health Department Accreditation Board to extend accredited local health department expiration dates through May 2022. In lieu of conducting site visits as usual, the program was able to take advantage of this time to engage in strategic planning and start important and innovative strategic projects that aim to provide improved and more relevant value for local health departments. To learn more check out the program’s 2020-2021 Annual Report video, Strategic Roadmap and most recent Strategic Plan Update.
Supporting Strategic Initiatives for NC’s Public Health Workforce
In fall 2021 NCIPH began a new collaboration with the N.C. Division of Public Health to support the Division’s work under the American Rescue Plan Act. Federal funds are being used in North Carolina and other states to invest in the public health workforce, including building capacity through hiring new staff and training the workforce in skills to support Public Health Foundational Capabilities. Through a contract that starts in early 2022, NCIPH will partner with the Division, the 10 regions of the N.C. Association of Local Health Directors and collaborating partners to develop new trainings, provide technical assistance and conduct a full gap analysis of the Foundational Capabilities for NC’s health departments.
N.C. Healthy Schools Training Website
Using funding support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NCIPH partnered with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI) to create an accessible learning resource for staff in each of N.C.’s 100 counties to help address rapidly changing roles and responsibilities. The result is the North Carolina Healthy Schools Training website, a repository of short, online, educational courses to help school staff be responsive to needs that emerged during the pandemic.
The North Carolina Healthy Schools Training Website officially launched in June and has been positively received by school staff and leadership across the state. The NC DHHS plans to add official nursing credit hours to the modules over the course of the year. NCIPH is in the process of developing plans to collaborate with NC DPI over the upcoming year, particularly in support of the social-emotional and mental health needs of school staff who will be coming back to in-person instruction in the fall.
CHA, CHA, CHA
A community health assessment (CHA) is a process that uses quantitative and qualitative methods to systematically collect and analyze data to understand health within a specific community. At best, the community health assessment process engages partners, informs decision-making, helps prioritize community issues and galvanizes the community to take mutually reinforcing action. North Carolina has led the nation in CHAs over the decades through NC Local Health Department Accreditation and N.C. Division of Public Health Consolidated Agreement requirements. The Community Assessment and Strategy Team at NCIPH has worked with 40 counties in the state on CHA projects since 2010, but 2021 was a banner year with NCIPH working with Chatham County Health Department, Gaston County Health Department, Granville-Vance District Health Department, Rowan County Health Department, Wake County Health and Human Services, and Mahoning and Trumbull Counties Health Partners in Ohio. Though this is certainly a lot of work for the team, it is also providing new opportunities for sharing of best practices between communities and advancing NCIPH’s proven model of conducting assessments. For more information please contact Director of Community Assessment and Strategy Amy Belflower Thomas at amy.b.thomas@unc.edu.
Give Me More!
We publish quarterly newsletters called IMPACT. If you missed them, please check out our April, July, and October 2021 issues here. If you aren’t already receiving them in your inbox, you can also subscribe here as well!
Now and in the Future
NCIPH has so much to look forward to in 2022, including further engagement of new team members, new organizational and UNC Gillings leadership and continuing collaborations and projects. Though the work is certainly challenging , we know that the work of bridging academics and practice is more important now than ever before. NCIPH is poised to rise to this challenge and continues to appreciate opportunities to do so with our partners across North Carolina.
With a mission to “bridge knowledge and expertise at UNC Gillings by facilitating collaborative solutions to population health challenges in North Carolina and beyond,” NCIPH supports local public health agencies, health care and community organizations across the state, region and country.
Find out more about NCIPH and connect at our website, with our team, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, and on Twitter. While you are at it, do the same with the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health!
