State and local agencies develop and implement public health policies, looking for ways to improve health outcomes at the population level. Public health spans medical, behavioral, mental, and developmental health, among others. States often set the underlying regulatory standards that health institutions must follow, and manage much of the licensing to enforce those regulations. However much of the decision-making for the implementation of public health policy is relegated to county governments, which focus on the needs of specific communities. During times of emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic, state governments can issue guidance and convene county health departments to enable better coordination of services and policies. State and local governments have recently attempted to ameliorate poor health policy and outdated public infrastructure to improve future government response to health crises, making them an even larger actor in subsequent health response efforts.
ESAL sat down to chat with Liz Snyder, a PhD turned co-founder turned Alaska state representative. Snyder uses her interest in environmental public health to lead initiatives that fortify Alaska's food systems at the state level. Snyder discusses how her education has impacted her long-term goals and career choices as well as her current projects.
HPREP or the Health Professional Recruitment and Exposure Program provides a platform to encourage students to pursue careers in science. Executive director Harim Won discusses the program's aim to eliminate educational disparities and increase representation of underrepresented and disadvantaged groups in related professions.
As she attended machine learning conferences, Savannah Thais realized her interest in creating more intelligent models that can address on-Earth problems like opioid abuse and COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
Mónica Feliú Mójer hablo con ESAL sobre Aquí Nos Cuidamos, una colección gratuita de contenidos educativos, comunitarios y multimedia sobre Covid 19, cienca y salud pública creada por Ciencia Puerto Rico. El grupo de científicos produce recursos culturalmente relevantes para equipar a los puertorriqueños, y sobre todo en las comunidades marginadas, a responder ahora a la pandemia y a los desafíos en el futuro.
ESAL spoke with director Mónica Feliú Mójer about Aquí Nos Cuidamos (“Here We Take Care of Each Other”), a free collection of educational, community-centered and multimedia content related to COVID-19. Launched as a program of the nonprofit CienciaPR, the culturally relevant resources equip Puerto Ricans to respond to the pandemic and future challenges.
Promptly after his workplace closed in March 2020 as a consequence of COVID-19, neurobiologist Michael Wells took action. Read about how one tweet turned into a volunteer effort comprised of over 9,000 scientists.
Varsha Chauhan is a physician and computer scientist. Her career trajectory has included leadership roles public health, health IT, and health systems administration. Most recently she was elected Board member of Eden Health District. ESAL interviewed Chauhan to learn more about how she has woven government and community engagement throughout her career.
In November, ESAL spoke to members of the Wastewater Epidemiology for the Bay Area (Covid-WEB) team about wastewater epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 and the Covid-WEB project.
“Our expertise is science; their expertise is what they need.” This statement by panelist Elina Kostyanovskaya referred to the importance of listening to vulnerable communities. It was one of several key takeaways from the webinar “STEM Students Responding to COVID in their Communities,” which was jointly hosted by ESAL and the National Science Policy Network […]
