The Pivot with Dr. Karl Johnson

Dr. Karl Johnson believes health can only be found in community.

What’s your role in public health?

I currently wear two main “hats” in my public health career. Firstly, I am an assistant professor in the newly formed Department of Public Health Leadership and Practice. In this capacity, I have a special interest in scholarship, teaching and practice related to local public health governance. I am also passionate about devising ways to better connect the work of Gillings to the world of local public health practice.

Speaking of which, with my other hat, I serve as the behavioral health integration specialist for the Granville Vance Public Health department, located in Granville and Vance Counties (immediately north of Durham). In this role, I coordinate a lot of community-based work to improve the integration of behavioral and mental health care throughout the district, often through the development of new partnerships with other community organizations and sectors of local government.

For instance, I’ve been involved in implementing a Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) grant focused on the provision of behavioral health supports within local public schools; developing a certification program for local churches that wish to be better equipped to address the mental health needs of their congregations; and providing technical assistance to Granville County in the administration of their opioid settlement funds.

Can you describe your focus area in one sentence?

I bolster the efforts of local public health institutions.

What brought you to public health?

My inspiration to pursue a career in public health stems from my undergraduate days as a patient advocate in Baltimore. Working with patients to navigate different social resources taught me much about the social determinants of health and the importance of population-level policies, advocacy and programming to improve health. (I also was a very bad chemistry student! So, the pre-med track became less and less enticing…)

Since then, I’ve enjoyed the field of public health for the opportunity it gives me to get out of the office and work in communities. (Public health should not be an office-based job!) I love having the chance to get to know folks from different backgrounds who all have a passion to improve the health of their neighbors.

I actually think there’s a sense in which I’m much more passionate about the general practice of community building than the specific discipline of public health — though I see public health practice as a great mechanism by which communities can come together and thrive. I’ve always been drawn to Wendell Berry’s essay, “Health is Membership,” in which he articulates how health is, at its core, a kind of wholeness that can only be found in community.

How have you pivoted during your public health career?

I have made many small and large pivots in my public health career! And I expect there are many more pivots for me down the line.

I’ll share one major example. When I arrived at Gillings as a doctoral student in the fall of 2019, I was primarily interested in decision science and health economic evaluations. However, over time — and in large part due to some applied research during the COVID-19 pandemic — I became much more interested in the field of public health governance and the work of local health departments in North Carolina. (When I first arrived at Gillings, I knew nothing about such institutions.)

It was the conversations I had with local health directors during pandemic that inspired me to make this pivot. I was immediately attracted to the work they were doing and wanted to find out how I could be helpful to their efforts. I think it’s a shame that many students are still unfamiliar with local public health departments; in my opinion, that’s where the real work of our field occurs.

The lesson I draw from that pivot is a simple one I share with students as often as I can: You never know what’s out there until you give it a try! While it can be tempting to imagine that one’s time as a student should primarily be spent in the classroom or on a computer completing assignments, some of the most valuable experiences I had in grad school were those in which I was prompted to get out of the classroom and connect with “real, on-the-ground” public health practitioners. I encourage current students to do the same — who knows what pivots are in store for them!

Who are you when you’re at home?

When at home, I love to discover new recipes to whip up in the kitchen, woodwork with friends, volunteer at my church, go hiking with my wife and tend to our backyard garden. Most recently I’ve gotten into the science/practice of fermentation (much to my wife’s chagrin)! I’m also very proud of the harvest our garden has had this summer, especially with our peppers — we’ve been able to make a whole host of pickled peppers, hot sauces, jellies and more.

Read more interviews in The Pivot series.

Published: August 6, 2024