Daylight saving time is (almost) here!

Et tu, springtime?

Mar 07, 2024

February has been a busy month filled with legislative meetings, new hires, and JFAC committee budgeting meetings. I hope you are settling into your office space and getting used to the new setup! Here at the Department of Health and Welfare, amid return-to-the-office activities and settling into new March work schedules, change may indeed feel like the only constant.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like as soon as I start getting used to the sun rising earlier, the clock springs forward again! My first goal, however—Daphne, here—is to assume responsibility for the DPH Communications Newsletter, so I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Any ideas for health-related quotes to include? For example, one of my first loves is poetry, so I may not be able to resist finding a literary quote to include in each issue (see Exhibit A, below):

Change is the only constant.
—Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 BCE)

What would you most like to see? Some of the new additions could be crowd-sourced, so please let me know what you think!

✒️🖆📰 Weekly POLL | What would you most like to see included in the DPH Communications Newsletter, moving forward?

In other news, March 10 is right around the corner—which brings us to this week’s second poll. This question inevitably relates to the controversial practice of setting our clocks forward, each March: daylight savings time.

Regardless of what we think of the clock-switching, I bet we all appreciate the extra light after 5 p.m. What is your favorite way to enjoy the longer afternoons?

⌛🕰️☀️ Another weekly POLL | What is your favorite way to enjoy the extra afternoon daylight?

Highlighting staff news, achievements, and milestones:

👋 Welcome Angela Gerrard! Idaho Family Planning Program welcomes Angie to the Bureau of Clinical and Preventative Services as the new Title X clinical coordinator. She has worked as a registered nurse for 15 years, with 12 years of experience in public health. She also worked for a year as a health educator in Ecuador, with a focus on reproductive and maternal/child health topics. Angie believes in the importance of public health and family planning to promote and maintain population health.

Her work in public health began in 2010 at the Malheur County Health Department in Ontario, Oregon, as a nurse in the Title X Family Planning Program. After about a year, she became the Family Planning Program Coordinator, working with Title X Liaisons at the Oregon Health Authority to ensure program compliance and quality. Angie is a graduate of the College of Idaho and the University of Portland. Angie is also a dog lover and volunteers her time at the Emmett Pet Adoption League. Angie’s first day was Monday, March 4.   

👏 Dr. Christine Hahn, Division of Public Health medical director and state epidemiologist, presented to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee on the 2023 measles outbreak in public health district three. The presentation was well-received, and there were great presentations from the World Health Organization and Philadelphia health department.

👏 Josh Rundle, research analyst, finalized the Suicide Prevention Program Dashboard. It’s available on the Get Healthy Idaho website under the Population Health Data tab.

Interesting health-related topics to catch up on:

💭Public Health Collaborative is a wonderful resource for those of us working in public health who are always looking for opportunities to learn and improve our communication skills. Check out their rolling lists of misinformation alerts and webinars. For those of us looking for ways to decorate our cubicles this month, check out this printable PDF with five tips for building trust:

Draft a comprehensive plan.

Ask for input.

Read it back.

Check your launch channels.

Improve for next time.

🗞️Health Good News is a rolling roundup of the latest people, organizations, and governments improving people’s health. Check out their latest edition of “Good News This Week,” too!

🏘️NPR recently reported on one of the latest trends in city planning: changes in zoning laws to allow for more mixed-use housing.

📖 READ | 🎧 LISTEN | Have you found any great public health-related articles or podcasts lately? Send them to Daphne.Stanford@dhw.idaho.gov and we’ll consider them for use in future newsletters.

Learning and growth opportunities:

 ☑️ Internal / ✅ External / ⭐ Idaho

✅ ⭐🦷The Idaho Oral Health Program is hosting a webinar on March 28^th from 12-1 pm (MDT). The American Fluoridation Society will share the latest information on the benefits, safety, and guidelines of fluoride. This webinar is recommended for dental & medical professionals, public health staff, and community health workers. Email kelli.broyles@dhw.idaho.gov to request a WebEx calendar invitation. Dental professionals can receive one continuing education credit for attending.

☑️ Returning to the office? Check out Public Health Workforce Development’s new internal “Welcome Back to the Office!” page full of useful resources:

☑️ DHW March & April instructor-led training schedule: Please see the recent email from Denise Stringer for the schedule and more info:

3/13/24: Crucial Conversations for Accountability - WebEx
4/3/24: New Employee Orientation - WebEx
4/8/24: Avoid, Deny, Defend: Active Shooter Training for DHW Staff - WebEx
4/9/24-4/11/24: Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue - WebEx

For questions about DHW Training, please email Training@dhw.idaho.gov.

✅Available Anytime | Basic Concepts in Data Analysis for Community Health Assessment: This is a five-part series covering concepts in data analysis and epidemiology –specifically designed for those in public health who may not have had as much formal data analytics training to make better assessments of public health data.

✅Plan Ahead | Hot Topics – AI in Public Health Today: The Basics: The Northwest Center for Public Health Practice is offering a free online webinar on Tuesday, March 26^th, on generative artificial intelligence (AI) and how it might enhance or threaten the work of population health workers—including discussions of ChatGPT and how it is used for tasks in addition to assessing its relevance to addressing challenges in population health.

✅☑️⭐Plan Ahead | Idaho’s Health Priorities Conference: Community-Driven Solutions, May 29 to 31, Boise: This conference will be located at Boise Centre at the Grove, and its mission will be to improve population health through strategic alliances and elevating the voices of our disproportionately affected communities.

In last week’s Policy, Performance, and Strategy (PPS) meeting, Joe Pollard informed us about an exciting new way to measure Idaho census tract data and compare selected neighborhoods to statewide medians: The Census Tract Deep Dive. The new addition to the Get Healthy Idaho Index dashboard allows users to explore the conditions in each census tract that affect a range of health and quality of life outcomes and risks.

This feature allows users to focus on a single census tract and see all the GHI Index and GHI domain scores as well as other community health estimates. Users can look up the census tract they’re interested in using a link on the dashboard and then select a topic area specific to the community measures they are interested in viewing. The bar charts show the selected census tract estimates and include the statewide median value for comparison.