May 23, 2023 | 3:00 - 4:00 pm ET
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), with the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is pleased to host an online sharing session on workforce development. The session will feature a panel discussion and Q&A with Dr. Bruce Dart, Health Director at Tulsa Health Department; Lisa Harrison, Health Director at Granville Vance Public Health; and Dr. Alan Melnick, Director/Health Officer at Clark County Public Health. The speakers will discuss some of the challenges that local health departments have been experiencing, including employee retention, workforce burnout, and how these issues were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Please note: This session is
broad in addressing workforce development issues which means departments
outside of food safety are welcome to attend, but there will be opportunity to
discuss this topic in relation to food safety specifically. For instance, some
of the discussion points you can expect to hear is how the recent increase in
new permits and food safety inspection standards from the federal levels are outpacing
LHDs’ current resource capabilities, including staff, and how to overcome this.
The session will provide both speakers and participants with an opportunity to share experiences and discuss ways to reengage staff in their work, especially at the local level. Participants are encouraged to share their own challenges, successes, and to ask questions during the discussion/Q&A portion of the presentation.
Speakers
Bruce Dart, PhD., has served five local health departments in three states during his 43-year career in public health. Currently, he is the executive director of the Tulsa City/County Health Department (THD), a local public health agency of 340 team members serving a county of over 670,000 residents. Dr. Dart serves in a leadership role as a member of several NACCHO work committee’s and is a NACCHO Past-President and former Board member. He is a Board member of Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) and serves on their Accreditation Review Committee. He is a Year 15 graduate of the National Public Health Leadership Institute, and his team was co-winner of the Martha Katz award for best project. He has received an appointment as a Visiting Associate Professor in the Oklahoma University Hudson College of Public Health and serves on the board of directors at the Child Abuse Network (CAN), MyHealth Health Information Exchange, Morton Comprehensive Health Services, and is on the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Caring Foundation board of advisors, the Impact Tulsa Leadership Council, The Tulsa Regional Chamber Board of Advisors, and the Schweitzer Fellowship advisory board. He received his BS in Biology from Drury University (MO) in 1977, his MS in Health Services Administration from Central Michigan University in 1989 and his Ph.D. in Health Services, specializing in community health from Walden University (MN) in 2005.
Lisa Macon Harrison, MPH, local health director in Granville and Vance Counties in North Carolina, has worked at the intersection of public health research and practice in North Carolina since 1995. Ms. Harrison’s areas of expertise and public health leadership and training include:
- Advocating for the Public Health Workforce and Rural Health
- Establishing the NC Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) and Rural Academic Health Department Models
- Training the Public Health Workforce in Evidence-Based Public Health Approaches
- Directing the NC Office of Healthy Carolinians and Health Education at NCDPH
- Leading the North Carolina Public Health Incubator Collaboratives Program
- Directing the Southeast Public Health Leadership Institute (SEPHLI)
- Facilitating a 5-county regional Stepping Up Initiative in northeastern NC to better address and treat mental health and substance use disorder needs among those who are justice-involved
- Creating integrated care models for individuals and improving systems of care for communities
- Addressing health equity during the COVID-19 pandemic response in Granville and Vance Counties
Ms. Harrison previously worked with the NC Center for Public Health Quality, the NC Division of Public Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on a Public Health Infrastructure grant for performance improvement.
Lisa has a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health, a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill. She is a co-author on more than 30 peer-reviewed publications in public health. Lisa remains associated with UNC-Chapel Hill as an adjunct research associate in the Public Health Leadership Program, and as a consultant adjunct with the Duke University School of Nursing. Lisa helped establish the Rural Academic Health Department model for GVPH which receives approximately $1,000,000 per year in grant funds. She served as President of the NC Public Health Association in 2015 and was elected to represent five southern states on the Board of Directors of the NACCHO (2018-2022) where she now serves as Past-President. Lisa was also recently invited to serve as a member of the NC Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) for a five-year term beginning in 2019 and co-chairs the NCIOM “Future of Public Health” task force.
Alan Melnick, MD, MPH, CPH is the Clark County (Washington) Public Health Director/Health Officer, Associate Professor at the Oregon Health & Science University-Portland State University (OHSU-PSU) School of Public Health and Adjunct Associate Professor at the OHSU School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. He is former member of the National Board of Public Health Examiners, past Chair of the Public Health Leadership Society (PHLS), past Co-Chair of the PHLS Ethics Committee, former member of the Board of Trustees of the Washington State Medical Association and served on the National Institutes of Health Community Level Health Promotion Study Section. As a member of the PHLS Ethics committee, he participated in the development and dissemination of the Public Health Code of Ethics. Currently, Dr. Melnick is a member of the NACCHO Board of Directors, a member of the NACCHO Workforce & Leadership Development Workgroup, a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington State Association of Local Public Health Officials (WSALPHO) and the WSALPHO Health Officers Chair. Within Clark County, he serves on the Clark County Medical Society Board and the PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center Community Health Board and Executive Committee. He has authored two books, numerous other publications and coauthored a third book, “Essentials of Public Health Ethics.”
For questions about the session, please reach out to [email protected].
