Going Beyond the Data: Innovative Community Partnerships for the Local Epidemiologist

Brief Summary
Local health departments form strong partnerships with organizations and are the leaders in their community for public health initiatives and public health emergencies. Local epidemiologists play a vital role in sustaining these partnerships. The City of Nashua, NH Division of Public Health and Community Services’ epidemiologist is involved in a variety of partnerships in the community. Based on these experiences, two examples of innovative partnerships will be discussed. Participants will also be given the opportunity to share innovative partnerships they have in their local community that foster relationship building and collaboration. The first example involves facilitating a regional Infection Control Work Group that consists of public health nurses, infection preventionists from the hospitals, long term care facilities and other organizations. By convening this group, the local epidemiologist builds relationships with the individuals responsible for infection control and breaks down barriers of communication with these organizations.  It is then easier to mobilize these professionals to work together on projects or to assist the health department in its response to public health emergencies. For instance, the group developed a MRSA prevention toolkit for schools including materials targeted to athletes, coaches, and parents for the City of Nashua and surrounding towns. The preventionists also partnered with the health department to present to staff at schools which allowed the preventionists to increase their visibility in the community and demonstrated the close partnership with the health department. Additional examples of innovative partnerships include participation on local groups such as healthcare and emergency preparedness coalitions. During the preparedness and response phase for public health emergencies, epidemiologists can assist these coalitions by providing expertise on control measures, identifying local triggers for response, monitoring local disease trends, and assisting local emergency management directors and medical partners with decision making and the coordination of resources. Local epidemiologists can provide education and training on disease transmission, infection control and current epidemiologic disease patterns to these coalitions which foster networking and relationship building with local public health. It is evident that local epidemiologists are an important part of the community and this discussion will allow colleagues to share innovative partnerships and ideas for fostering collaboration and communications in the community.