Spotlight on Training: Local Public Health Institute.
Did you know that the Activist Lab is home to three, federally-funded training centers, each with a different mission and audience? Here’s a quick look at one and how it may benefit you!
The mission of the Local Public Health Institute (LPHI) is to improve public health and preparedness capabilities by creating, implementing, and sustaining workforce development activities for local public health and other public health system partners in Massachusetts. In order to fully understand the importance of LPHI, you need to know a few things about the way local governmental public health works in the Commonwealth.
Massachusetts has a decentralized governance structure where the 351 cities and towns are independently organized for the delivery of local public health services and operate autonomously from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Meaning, there are 351 boards of public health within the state, each with a broad range of responsibilities like:
- Protection of the food supply through inspections of restaurants and other food establishments;
- Healthcare and disease control, including timely reporting and response to communicable diseases, occupational health and safety violations, food poisoning a, and rabies;
- Inspections of public and semi-public swimming pools, beaches, recreational camps for children, motels, and mobile home parks;
- Enforcing no-smoking laws;
- Developing, testing, and building awareness of emergency preparedness plans for a wide range of hazards; and
- A wide array of other responsibilities, including issuing burial permits, regulating tanning facilities, inspecting body art establishments, issuing health reports, and more.
An MPH is not necessarily a required credential to sit on the board of public health or to work in the health department. So, how does a local governmental public health professional with little or no public health experience meet the critical demands of the job?
The answer is by signing up for one of LPHI’s many training resources. LPHI offers standardized courses and training materials as well as other trainings upon request. It also works on related projects such as the development of program area and cross-cutting competencies and links those to the development and delivery of specific trainings.
An excellent example is the Foundations for Local Public Health Practice course, created by BUSPH in 2004 for local public health department staff and board members in Massachusetts, and it has run continually since then. Approximately 400 practitioners have graduated from the course. Earlier in November, the next class of 25 public health practitioners graduated from the course and participated in a ceremony to commemorate the milestone.
Graduation remarks were given by Derek Fullerton, President of the Massachusetts Health Officers Association (MHOA) and MA rep to National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), who encouraged the graduates to remember why the entered Public Health to begin with and to enjoy the job every day.
While the course is geared to working professionals, BU SPH students have attended the Real World Environmental Health Day and have access to the E-Learnings which are part of the course. The E-Learnings are free and are part of the LPHI On Your Time series. If you’re interested in finding out what happens in a local health department, check them out.
LPHI would like to thank its collaborators: Health Resources and Services Administration, Massachusetts Association of Public Health Nurses, Massachusetts Environmental Health Association, Massachusetts Health Officers Association, and Massachusetts Department of Public Health, particularly the Office of Local and Regional Health. We could not run this program without their support.