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Fall 2023

In This Issue:

  • Special Announcement >>
  • Project Updates >>
  • Staff Updates>>
  • NCIPH Workshops and Training >>
  • What We’re Reading – #PublicHealthNerd Articles  >>

Special Announcement

NCIPH is very excited to announce that we are recommending to the Chancellor and Board of Trustees that Amy Joy Lanou, PhD, be appointed the next faculty director of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health (NCIPH), and Amy has agreed to accept the appointment when officially tendered by UNC-Chapel Hill. We are undergoing the appointment package process now and anticipate that to be completed in time for her to start in November. Amy’s faculty appointment will be in the UNC Gillings Public Health Leadership Program, where she currently has an adjunct professor appointment.

Dr. Lanou currently serves as the executive director of the North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness at UNC-Asheville. That center has a similar mission to NCIPH and funds its activities through obtaining grants and contracts, also like NCIPH. The center “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, Amy serves 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.”

Amy is a tenured professor of nutrition in UNC-Asheville’s department of health and wellness. She also served as chair of that department from July 2014 to January 2020.

Welcome, Amy!

Project Updates

Workforce Training and Education

  • 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).

    Over the past several months, our Workforce Training and Education team has increased North Carolina’s capacity for equity-centered public health leadership at the state and local levels. We’ve continued to develop the leadership capacity of managers and supervisors across all areas of local public health practice. We’ve also increased the primary care capacity of local health departments through our largest-ever graduating cohort of enhanced role nurses.

  • Graduates of the 2022-2023 North Carolina Public Health Leadership Institute: Leading With Equity, pictured with instructors Jones (left) and Merino (right).

    Our recently compiled evaluation data for the past fiscal year (July 2022-June 2023) shows that participants achieved 5,578 training completions with us across 33 programs. More than 90% of respondents reported that our programs enhanced their knowledge and were relevant to their daily jobs.

  • We continue to partner with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Public Health (NCDPH) to support the rollout of the state’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Public Health Workforce Development Initiative. Between July 2022 and June 2023, we offered 20 ARPA-funded training programs. We’ve launched a new first-in-the-nation course that equips public health nurses in North Carolina to apply evidence-based information to their practice. We have released new, online, self-paced courses, providing consultants and parliamentarians with the skills they need to be effective and educating public health professionals in ethical decision-making. And we’ve been building and facilitating two community-of-practice groups, one for health directors and one for nurses in ARPA region 7. Finally, we recently helped recruit an inaugural cohort of NCDPH fellows, the next generation of public health professionals, and we’re setting them up for early-career success by providing coaching and professional development.

Accreditation Updates

  • Our Accreditation team set out for a week last May to hold in-person Regional Workshops with local health department employees. Their “tour bus” stopped in Fayetteville, Morganton and Greenville. These workshops were funded by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). Visit the N.C. Local Health Department Accreditation website for a summary of the trips, their goals and outcomes.
  • The North Carolina Local Health Department Boards reaccredited 27 health departments this year, and conditionally accredited one new health department. 79% were reaccredited with honors, up from a historical 64%.

Health departments missed fewer than two activities on average — a noticeable improvement from prior cycles.

  • Each year, the North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation Program conducts an annual survey to learn about local health departments’ experiences with accreditation and ways that we can continue to add value to the accreditation process. Explore the interactive slides to see results from our 2022-2023 annual survey and how this compares to 2018-2022 data.

Community Assessment and Strategy Team Updates

  • The Community Assessment and Strategy (CAS) team recently wrapped up a number of projects. They finished work with the Wake Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) and are completing work offering technical assistance to NACCHO. In addition, members of the team offered one-on-one technical assistance coaching hours for several public health professionals, part of our ongoing Data & Metrics project funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Foundation.
  • NCIPH is now part of the national evaluation team for the CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure Grant. Through this work, NCIPH will be conducting a gap analysis of the Foundational Public Health Services across the country and convening an Evaluation Advisory Board to promote relevant, equitable and accessible evaluation methods and dissemination over the course of the five-year grant.

Staff Updates

In addition to our new director, NCIPH has added to our staff recently. Please help us welcome Nedra Draughn (Project Coordinator), Abbie Forbes (Event Planner), Jill Jiang (Project Associate), Lois Johnson (Data Analyst & Advisor), Lauren Jones (Community Data Coordinator), Jianing Liang (Online Learning Coordinator), James Speckart (Curriculum Developer).

NCIPH is Hiring!

Find our current job offerings at unc.peopleadmin.com. Search for “NC Institute for Public Health – 46852” in the ‘Department’ field.

NCIPH Workshops and Training

Upcoming Trainings

Registration is open for:

And will be opening soon for:

New Online Trainings

Thanks for reading. Here’s to health in N.C. and beyond!


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