April 6 through 12 is National Public Health Week, an opportunity to celebrate the power of public health and the impact it has on keeping families safe, healthy, and thriving.
The week is an opportunity to recognize the contributions of multiple workers and organizations, including your local health department.
“We like to say that public health touches people from birth to the grave,” said Lincoln Trail District Health Department Public Relations Officer Melissa Phillips. “We are kind of in the background, making sure that people have healthy communities, healthy facilities, and just access to health in general.”
The health department operates three arms of service.
“We have our clinical services, and that’s things like our adult vaccination program and our WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program,” Phillips said. “We have our environmental services, and that’s your restaurant inspections, your inspections of public facilities. Then we have our early childhood services, so that’s our maternal child health coordinators and our HANDS program, which is a program for new parents.”
The week is an opportunity to say thank you to area public health workers.
“Our public health system is very broad,” Phillips said. “It’s your doctors, it’s your hospital, it’s law enforcement, it’s your schools, so anybody who works in that public health system, give them an extra little shout-out this week because it is National Public Health Week.”
Contact the health department for more information on services.
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