Introduction

Hello! As NCIPH begins 2024, we are happy to reflect on the past year and all that we have accomplished. 2023 brought many changes, from hiring a new NCIPH Director to introducing a new academic department within the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill. This year, NCIPH will be a part of the Department of Public Health Leadership and Practice, strengthening our connection to UNC Gillings’ academics and helping bridge practice and scholarship in new ways.

We want to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported us, worked with us, and helped us achieve our goals. Without your help, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We are truly grateful for your support and dedication to our mission.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dr. John Wiesman, associate dean for practice at UNC Gillings and our interim NCIPH director since 2022. Dr. Wiesman’s leadership style inspired confidence and fostered collaboration among team members. The future promises more listening, learning and collaboration with John, so this is a warm “see you later” rather than a “goodbye.”

It is our great pleasure to welcome our new NCIPH director, Dr. Amy Joy Lanou, who brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to our organization. She has most recently served as the executive director of the North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness at UNC Asheville, which “works to impact policy, build capacity, and ignite community initiatives by working through a web of cross-sector relationships organized around building healthier places throughout the state.” In addition to this role, she served as the UNC Asheville lead for the UNC Asheville-UNC Gillings Master of Public Health Program, which is a place-based MPH concentration that “centers people and their communities as the catalyst for transforming systems to promote well-being for all.” Dr. Lanou was a tenured professor of nutrition and will take on a professorship within the Department of Public Health Leadership and Practice at Gillings.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Amy Joy Lanou to our team. We look forward to working with her and achieving great things together.

As we look ahead to the coming year, we know that there will be new challenges to face and opportunities to seize. But we are confident in our ability to adapt and thrive, and we are excited to continue working towards a better future for all.

Thank you for your continued support and for taking the time to read this report. We hope that it gives you a clear understanding of our organization’s impact and inspires you to join us in our mission.

Three Questions for Dr. John Wiesman, Former NCIPH Interim Director

Dr. John Wiesman

Dr. John Wiesman has been an incredible force for good during his time with us, and we were delighted to sit down for a brief chat about his tenure, public health and the future of NCIPH. Join us as we celebrate John and all he’s done to help us make a positive impact in the communities we serve.

Question 1: What have you been most proud of during your NCIPH tenure?

JW: The dedication of our staff to the clients we serve and really trying to work through how we can best help them. People often ask for training: “I want you to train in this.” It’s worth taking a second to say, “Tell us what you’re trying to achieve and let us see if this sort of training is the best way to achieve that. Is there another way of achieving those goals?”

I’m also proud of how committed and mission-driven people have been to the work during this time of transition. It’s the work our staff do every day to help make North Carolina a better place in terms of supporting our workforce and in terms of addressing what the practice needs are.

Question 2: What would you like more people to know about public health and practice?

JW: Public health practice is really broad. It is some of the things people normally think of – it’s restaurant inspections or getting flu shots – but it’s also about how we have healthier communities. Public health work is really listening to the community. What is it that a community needs? Where are their strengths? How do we use their strengths to help further the goal of healthy communities, healthy environments, healthy people? And that does mean we have to be humble. We must realize that people have lived experience. And we’ve got to value that lived experience and hear it.

Question 3: What do you hope for NCIPH in the next few years?

JW: Governmental public health will always, I think, be the core of our work. And I’m looking forward to our continuing to be able to serve our current client base, but also to grow. There are a lot of people and groups that do public health work. How can we best support those folks in the nonprofit sector, in the health care delivery sector, in businesses and other groups to do the public health work that they do? Certainly, the pandemic showed us that every sector has a hand in public health.

To our friends out there who support us with their ongoing trust, we don’t take that lightly. We’re committed to doing good work and we look forward to building our relationships.

Three Questions for Dr. Amy Joy Lanou, Director of NCIPH

Dr. Amy Lanou

We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Amy Joy Lanou to our organization! With years of experience in the field of public health and a passion for making a positive impact in our state and beyond, we are confident that she will lead our team and work closely with our partners and supporters to continue advancing our mission.

Question 1: What do you look forward to in working with NCIPH?

AJL: Personally, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the people here, and I feel like there’s a strong, solid team. I would also like to thank John Wiesman for being an incredible search chair and colleague in this process. He has been carrying so much. I hope I can take some of that weight off of him, and I look forward to working with him in the future.

Professionally, I want to see us communicating well and collaborating well with current partners, new partners, and each other. I think that’s super important. My life experience and particularly my professional experience has brought me to this place of really wanting to make sure that people who are working in public health are communicating with people who are working in health promotion, clinical care and behavioral health. We have an opportunity to support folks, rethink how the system is working or not and what we can do about it. For me, that’s back to communication and collaboration.

Question 2: What has surprised you while working in public health?

AJL: I think that the shift from a health promotion focus – or health literacy focus – to a public health focus really helps bring home the message that health is more than behavioral choices: it’s also about access to and utilization of resources needed. It wasn’t a single “Oh, my gosh” moment. Still, it is surprising if you come from this mindset of, “Let’s teach a class and everybody can learn how to eat more vegetables.” Then you realize that that will only help people who are at a certain level of readiness and have a certain level of access. But to really help people do something as simple as eat more vegetables, you’ve got to go back further to where they live, and whether they have work, and whether they have power in their communities.

Question 3: You have a four-day weekend, and everything checked off your to-do list. Where are you headed and what are you doing?

AJL: I would probably have a staycation in Asheville, North Carolina. That would involve both a solid day and a half in my garden – any time of year is fine – and several long walks, probably urban walks, but maybe I’d get on the Appalachian Trail or something like that. I love the food there. I’ve been vegan since ‘96 and they have, I think, one of the best vegan restaurants in the country, called Plant, and just lots of good, local, fresh food. I’m a nutritionist by training and a foodie at heart. Ask me about my favorite places and I’m going to talk about food.

NCIPH Programs and Accomplishments

As we reflect on 2023, we are proud of our mission at NCIPH to collaboratively lead and foster innovative solutions to public health challenges in NC and beyond by creating systems, policies, and programs that work for all, and impactful programs supported by our team and partners. Please join our Workforce Training and Education, Community Assessment and Strategy, and Accreditation teams in celebrating this year’s collaborations and accomplishments.

NCIPH staff at our 2023 holiday celebration

North Carolina Credentialed Public Health Nurse Program

Together with the Office of the Chief Public Health Nurse at the NCDHHS Division of Public Health (NCDPH), we launched the North Carolina Credentialed Public Health Nurse course in May of this year. Since then, over 300 governmental public health nurses have earned the credential. Course highlights:

• Award-Winning Program:The course has been recognized for advancing racial justice, and the credentialing program, the first of its kind in the nation, is an American Public Health Association creative achievement award winner.
• Foundational Practice-Centered Training: The 15-hour, self-paced online course gives governmental public health nurses a foundation in public health nursing practice in North Carolina. Real-life scenarios, self-assessments and case studies allow nurses to assess their knowledge and apply the content in daily practice. A supervisor guide outlines the course content so that supervisors can support their nurses in applying what they learn.

New Professional Development Opportunities Supported by ARPA Funding

In partnership with NCDPH and with the support of American Public Rescue Act (ARPA) funding, we expanded our professional development offerings this year, including:

• Continuing Education: We offered workshops on organizational equity for NCDPH staff and built online courses that are available for free to local and state health professionals, or to anyone who wants to learn about public health ethics, parliamentary procedure or public health consulting.
• NCDPH Fellowships: We helped NCDPH launch a new fellowship program where four new fellows are supported by professional development and coaching that draws on the expertise of UNC Gillings faculty and staff.
• Community of Practice Groups: We began facilitating two community-of-practice groups for health directors and nurses in ARPA region 7.

Workforce Development Courses at NCIPH

NCIPH continued to host these longstanding professional development courses that build public health workforce expertise in N.C.:

• Management Training: 55 public health managers from 25 North Carolina counties attended our two-week Management and Supervision for Public Health Professionals course in the spring. It was a banner year, with registration filling within just a few weeks.
• Clinician Training: The Enhanced Role RN: Physical Assessment for Adults and STD Clinician (ERRN PAA/STD) course has also continued to train public health nurses across the state to provide more in-depth services at their health departments. Twenty-four nurses officially rostered as ERRNs in 2023.

North Carolina Public Health Leadership Institute: Leading with Equity

In the spring, 18 staff from NCDPH and North Carolina local health departments graduated from a new program that we piloted the previous year and then revamped: North Carolina Public Health Leadership Institute (NCPHLI): Leading with Equity. This program supported:

• Advancements in Health Equity: NCPHLI faculty and subject matter experts guided participants in brainstorming, prioritizing, implementing and troubleshooting programmatic and structural changes to advance equity within their respective agencies.
• Organizational Change: Through evaluations, participants indicated that the program increased their understanding of how their organization’s practices, policies and culture determine equity outcomes in their communities and that participating in the program provided them with the knowledge and tools to integrate equity into their organizations.

2022-2023 North Carolina Public Health Leadership Institute: Leading With Equity participants in discussion with instructors Ki’Yonna Jones, MHA, MBA (standing, left) and Yesenia Merino, PhD, MPH (standing, right).

North Carolina School Nurse Conference

The North Carolina School Nurse Conference had an exciting year. Thanks to ARPA funding, almost 750 school nurses from across the state attended the conference at a very reduced cost. The conference is an annual opportunity for school nurses to advance their practice and network with colleagues from other counties and regions.

Department of Public Health (DPH) Gap Analysis

Building off the successes of gap analyses conducted among local health department staff in the winter of 2023, NCIPH conducted surveys, interviews and focus groups among NCDPH employees to establish strengths and gaps in the Foundational Public Health Capabilities domains.

• NCDPH Results: Participants were asked to rate their section’s expertise and capacity for each of the eight Foundational Capabilities. These results will inform management decisions, and the surveys will be repeated in the future to gauge change over time within NCDPH.
• Scalable Approach: This gap analysis work continues on a larger scale with NCIPH and a partnership with the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI), which will replicate the surveys, interviews and focus groups with health departments across the country.

HBCU Health Equity Data Consortium

We continued our engagement with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Health Equity Data Consortium, supporting the assessment of disparate impacts of COVID-19 by race, ethnicity, disability status and wealth on communities throughout North Carolina, in collaboration with HBCUs and minority-serving institutions and other universities across the state. Over the past year a statewide COVID-19 impact survey has been administered – Phase 1, which includes NC Medicaid Regions 2, 3, and 5 in partnership with Winston-Salem State University, Johnson C. Smith University, and Elizabeth City State University, completed data collection in July 2023. Phase 2 data collection is underway in NC Medicaid Regions 1, 4, and 6 in partnership with other HBCUs, historically minority-serving institutions, and other universities. NCIPH will assist schools with analysis and results will be disseminated in 2024.

Community Assessment and Strategy Collaborations

Throughout the course of this year, we have actively worked towards strengthening our existing partnerships, while also forging new relationships with a diverse range of community-based organizations, HBCUs, the Lumbee Tribe, NNPHI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Through these partnerships and collaborations, we have been able to expand our reach and impact, while also creating valuable opportunities for mutual learning, growth and development. By building strong and meaningful relationships with these key partners, we remain committed to driving positive change and making a lasting impact in the communities we serve.

North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation Program

In 2023, the North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation (NCLHDA) Program administered site visits, implemented program revisions, and continued working with partners across the state. This year, we focused on redrafting accreditation activities, receiving initial feedback on a proposed draft in May. Our history has taught us invaluable lessons that we can use to enhance our work, and we are excited to continue improving our processes. For more, watch the NCLHDA 2022-2023 annual report video.

We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt thanks to all of our amazing supporters, partners and employees. Your unwavering commitment to our mission means the world to us, and we couldn’t do it without you!