WIG highlight: WIC works with Vital Records to increase awareness of program
WIC flyers are now sent in mailers to parents of newborns.
The Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS) has recently started including flyers about The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) in the mailers they send with information on how to order a birth certificate to parents of newborns. The Immunization Program has long included a schedule for vaccines for infants in the mailers to great success. Their bureau’s Wildly Important Goal (WIG) is to “deliver WIC promotional material to 1,300 mothers of newborns each month.” The bureau started sending out the flyers to parents on December 24. In just over a month, they sent out a total of 2,302 flyers.
Leah Sallas, WIC section manager, and Teresa Kobza, WIC nutrition specialist, worked with James Aydelotte, BVRHS chief and Nicole Peters, administrative assistant 2, to decide on the flyer to use. They had 14,000 flyers printed that must be used before the end of June. 11,000 of the copies are for the mailers and 3,000 are for WIC to provide to other bureaus as requested. Eligibility information will be updated in the spring and new flyers will be created to use after July 1.
If your program has an event or a partner you’d like to share the printed flyers with, please contact Leah. Here is a digital copy of the flyer What is WIC About).
This will also help us reach the DPH measure to “Increase the number of people participating in WIC from 31,101 in May 2024 to 32,500 in July 2026.”
WIC participation is important because it provides access to nutritious foods, nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and health referrals to pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding women, infants, and young children living with lower incomes. If you know someone who may be eligible, share the link signupwic.com.
Send us your ideas for Idaho Health Improvement Plan spotlights
The 2024 Statewide Health Assessment identified access to care, behavioral health, housing, and preventive factors - especially food security - as Idaho’s top health priorities. The Statewide Health Assessment forms the basis for the division’s five-year Statewide Health Improvement Plan (SHIP), which is expected to be complete in spring 2025.
We need your help! We’d like to share spotlights in the SHIP with inspirational projects, programs and partnerships working to improve or support access to care, behavioral health, housing and preventive factors. The spotlights are an opportunity to celebrate good work happening around the state and to inspire momentum around these priority issues. The SHIP team will reach out to partners to see if they are interested in being showcased and to gather details on what has made their work successful.
Please send SHIP spotlight ideas to Karla Nelson at karla.nelson@dhw.idaho.gov. Include a short description of why the work should be spotlighted, along with any contact information you may have for those leading the work. Spotlights can be internal or external to DHW but should align with the top four health priorities.
Well done!
From 800 to none: Brigitta Gruenberg, Enviornmental Health program manager, participated in a media interview about radon in Idaho in early February to spread the word about the dangers of radon in Idaho homes. She said the program had around 800 radon tests before the interview, and all of those tests have since been distributed to people who contacted the program after seeing the interview. Watch it!
Thank you, Ivie Smart! Women's Health Check, Comprehensive Cancer, and Tiffany Robb send a big thank you to Ivie for the hard work she put into completing continuation applications for those programs, even though the programs are no longer part of her section. “Ivie was so thoughtful in ensuring that I wasn't left with picking them up where she left them once she was no longer the section manager for the two programs,” Tiffany wrote.
Out and about
Pam McCrary, Health Operations field coordinator in the Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics, presented at the 2025 Idaho Association of County Coroners meeting. Pam presented detailed information about how to use some of the advanced functionality within Electronic Death Reporting System 2 (EDRS 2) to track workload within their respective counties. Pam also answered various questions about how to use EDRS 2 to generate reportable data.
James Aydelotte, bureau chief for Vital Records and Health Statistics, and Jeremy Peterson, automated system manger, met with representatives from the Oregon Health Authority who are seeking permission to contact Idaho hospitals who are likely to deliver births to Oregon residents (specifically residents of Malheur County) about new home health visiting options available to them in Oregon. Information about setting up a research agreement was provided.
James and Jeremy were also joined by Pam McCrary, Health Operations field coordinator in the Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics, and Anthony Thomas, program specialist, regarding a presentation with Boise State University School of Public Health Policy looking at areas in which our two organizations may be able to benefit from one another in areas of training and workforce development.
Kelly Berg and Brigitta Gruenberg, Bureau of Environmental Health and Communicable Disease, met with PHD3 and University of Idaho representatives to discuss potential lead exposures at shooting ranges and plans for educational outreach on reducing risks.
Staff changes
The Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics is pleased to welcome two new staff:
Welcome Aria Petrucci! Aria Petrucci started on Feb. 3 as a research analyst senior in the Health Statistics unit. Aria received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Washington State University and then a master’s degree in psychology at the University of British Columbia, where she studied how people remember emotional events. As a brand-new resident of Idaho, she is very excited to explore everything that this beautiful state has to offer! In her free time, she loves to bake, read, and mountain bike, and she is currently learning to play piano. Animals are a big part of her life; she has a beloved cat named Lola and has owned horses for many years. She is so excited to join the Vital Statistics team and can’t wait to get to know everybody.
Welcome back, Becky Reynolds! Becky previously began with the bureau in August 2022 as an OS2 in the registration unit. She worked until Sept. 7, 2023. Becky is back serving as an OS2-Temp in our registration unit. Let’s all welcome Becky back and we are so glad to have her (again!)
Welcome, Dr. Siyuan (Josie) Huang! She has joined the Population Health Data team as the new maternal and child health research analyst, principal. Josie is a talented researcher with years of experience in health science and data analysis. In 2024, she completed her PhD in clinical psychology at Penn State University, where she studied smoking cessation and comorbid depression. After her PhD, she accepted a postdoc research position at the University of Arizona, where she led an NIH-funded study on sleep interventions for firefighters. Josie is excited to join us at DHW and use her skills to improve maternal and child health in Idaho.
In support of the Wildly Important Goal (WIG)
A home visiting success story: Southwest District Health submitted this success story for its Nurse-Family Partnership program, which is one of the programs offered through the DPH Idaho Home Visiting Program.
This client had her baby over the holidays and let her home visitor know the first week had been really difficult. She was struggling to bond with her baby. She shared concerns with her home visitor about her milk supply and explained her feeding and pumping schedule. The home visitor was able to provide information about supply and demand with milk supply and give advice on a schedule that would increase her milk supply.
Mom also had concerns about her baby latching correctly and the frustration that would cause. The home visitor talked with mom about watching for and recognizing early feeding cues. During the visit, mom recognized several cues, and the baby successfully latched. Mom also learned a new position for holding her baby. By the end of the visit, mom felt confident to do it again and make changes to keep her milk supply up. At the next visit, breastfeeding was more successful, and mom was happy.
Fentanyl overdose deaths in Idaho
Pam Harder, research analyst supervisor in the Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics, provided the Ada County Coroner the number of drug overdose deaths in Idaho involving fentanyl for the past three years.
2024* 111
2023 188
2022 178
*2024 data are preliminary and are based on deaths in which there is a known cause of death. There are currently more than 100 deaths in which the cause of death is pending an investigation in Idaho. Data are subject to change especially for July through December. Data for 2024 should be used with caution. The total number is expected to increase as more causes of death are determined.
One Department Q&A: Procurement requests
(NEW and updated Feb. 18) Do small purchases need to be submitted through One Department?
No. Purchases that are below the small purchase threshold (five-year total is less than $15,000 for products; five-year total is less than $25,000 for services) do not need to be submitted through One Department. A final note of clarity - Professional Service Agreements are still required up to $25,000 when the work involves people coming onsite (or to a DHW hosted event) such as guest speakers. These do not fit under the definition of small purchases regardless the dollar amount.
Do p-card purchases made under a statewide contract need to be submitted through One Department before the purchase can be made?
No. As mentioned above, if the purchase is under a statewide contract, and it is for an item allowable to purchase with a p-card (i.e., office supplies), then it does not have to be submitted through One Department.
The program I work in uses the same contract for multiple vendors since the scope and nature of the work is exactly the same. Do I have to submit 40 One Department procurement requests for this contract?
No. CAPS considers this a “master” contract. Only one submission through One Department is needed. When submitting your request, please attach a document with the vendor names and detail that the contract language will be the same for each. When working with CAPS, please reference the single One Department approval number. Amendments will follow the same process.
Send your One Department questions to Niki Forbing-Orr to be included in a future newsletter. Read a full FAQ.
Learning and growth opportunities
☑️ Internal / ✅ External / ⭐ Idaho
☑️ ⭐ DHW annual training due by March 31 | Annual trainings have been assigned to staff in Luma’s Development Plan DHW Annual Training 2025 and must be completed by March 31. Questions? See an email all staff received from Monica Young on Feb. 3, or email training@dhw.idaho.gov.
☑️ DHW Director’s Bulletins | DHW Director Alex Adams regularly publishes bulletins that lead work and priorities throughout DHW. The latest bulletin was published on Feb. 10 and is about Medicaid waivers. All Director’s Bulletins are published on the Director’s Office SharePoint site.
☑️ ⭐ DHW December Transparency Reports are now available | To increase transparency and accountability of department operations, and to provide data for economic and statewide budget forecasting, the divisions of Medicaid and Self-Reliance (which includes WIC data) now issue monthly reports of program participation and expenditures. See the reports.
☑️ ⭐ Contact DPH Communications to get started with a communications or marketing project | Start by visiting the DPH Communication Team page on SharePoint, which has step-by-step instructions to connect with Marketing and Brand Officer James la Marche, to get started with your education and outreach projects.
☑️ ⭐ New resources and training for DHW computer platforms | Resources include SharePoint, Laserfiche, Gov Delivery, Microsoft, and MS365. Check it out!
✒️ DHW Voice blog | Articles written by DHW staff are available on the department’s website.
📰 DHW Connection | The department’s newsletter is published on Inside DHW each payday. Read the latest issue!
📰 DHW news releases | News releases are posted on the DHW website. Read the latest.
Send your ideas for newsletter stories, staff news, events, successes and other DPH Newsletter content to Niki.Forbing-Orr@dhw.idaho.gov. The next issue will come out the week of March 5.