CWORPH Webinar 3 on Rural Public Health

This webinar is part of an annual series from the Consortium for Workforce Research in Public Health (CWORPH) highlighting our recent work. Featured presentations include:

Collaborations between Local Public Health and Healthcare: Highlighting Rural Success Stories (Casey Balio & Stephanie Mathis, East Tennessee State University). The benefits of and barriers to successful partnerships between public health and health care organizations are well-documented, but less is known about these partnerships in rural settings. This study described local collaborations between local health departments and health care organizations in rural settings, highlighting factors that may support or hinder collaborations and specific workforce considerations.

Changing Structures in Local Public Health: Impacts and Implications (Kayla Alvis, East Tennessee State University). Rural health departments have experienced additional burdens due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in structural changes such as de-coupling (disbanding) of previously regionalized health departments and the closure of rural local health departments. This study describes the processes, workforce implications, and perceived impacts on the local community of structural changes of rural LHDs.