New toolkit aims to strengthen county-public health collaboration

To build healthier communities and better respond to public health needs, county officials and public health leaders must work together before crisis hits, panelists said Saturday at a County Strategies for Advancing Public Health session during NACo’s Annual Conference.

The National Commission on Local Public Health Leadership, which was formed last year to help identify gaps in relationships between policy, policymakers and public health, recently launched a “Good Health is Good Governance” toolkit to support building partnerships in the public health field. Two county leaders — Athens County, Ohio Commissioner Lenny Eliason and Loudoun County, Va. Chair Phyllis J. Randall — are members of the public health commission and helped inform the toolkit.  

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“My vision for the work was to make sure that it was usable at all levels, all sizes of governments,” Eliason said. “A lot of times, when you put a national commission together, they tend to silo things. 

“I want to make sure that you can use this, no matter what level of government you’re at, and that you can adapt it to what your needs are. It’s not a prescription, but a map to get things better.”

The toolkit acts as a guide for elected officials and public health leaders to build a relationship, including a step-by-step framework for using data to move shared priorities to tangible progress and tips to clarify and streamline response in the event of a public health emergency or routine surge.  

“I thought if we could do something to put in place some skeleton of information of what to do when the next crisis happens, it actually may save lives,” Randall said. “So, whatever we can do to get ahead of the curve … because it’s never a question of ‘Will something else happen?’ as far as a medical issue or public health issue, but ‘What will happen’? So, to put the toolkit together was vitally important to me.”

In Montgomery County, Md. and Rolette County, N.D., elected officials and public health leaders already have an established relationship, which improves community health response and outcomes. 

In the internet age when misinformation can spread widely and quickly, ensuring that sources are heavily vetted and verifiable is paramount, and working closely with public health leaders is the way to do that, said Montgomery County Councilmember-At-Large Laurie-Anne Sayles. And bringing everyone to the table — state partners, faith institutions — before crises happen helps establish broader community trust for when they do hit, she noted. 

“You have to speak from data-informed perspectives,” Sayles said. “… Our analysts and staff are some of the most important people behind these elected officials. We could not do the work that we do without [them] to ensure that the information that we’re giving to the public is verifiable.”

In Rolette County, it took time to build a sense of trust with local officials, but simply showing up is the best way to start, said Rolette County Public Health Administrator Barbara Frydenlund. 

“Public health was not understood in the county, nor was it really welcomed because it cost money,” Frydenlund said. “But I found that going to county commission meetings, going to city councils without an ask — finding out, ‘What do you see as the most pressing issues with your constituents or within your community?’ — and then going back and trying to work on those touch points that they made, being fiscally responsible with the small amount of resources that I had, looking for alternative funding sources that were going to address the needs that they had identified, that was that trust-building and that follow-through that was just so important.”