Letter from the Director of Public Health

Dear Fellow Elm City Resident:

The New Haven Health Department staff is proud to continue a tradition of fulfilling and assuring the interest of City residents to have conditions in which people can be healthy. Over the last year, the various programs in the Department tracked and monitored trends of communicable diseases, ensured the safety of the food delivery system, continued educating the public on health issues, assisted parents and children at high risk, and prepared for and responded to disease outbreaks and emergencies. This past year, the Health Department also aligned efforts with the City’s priorities around school reform by both strengthening the organization and delivery of nursing services and focusing on projects such as asthma control and improved nutrition, which ensure students are healthy and fit to obtain academic success.
 
As the practice of public health has shifted over the years to focus on the prevention of chronic diseases, the Department strives to structure its organization and programs to address newer challenges such as health inequities and the increasing burden of chronic disease risk factors. To address disparities in health outcomes, the New Haven Health Department is embracing a form of public health practice, which questions traditional thinking and prevailing assumptions. While the agency maintains a service-oriented mission, the Department has also sought to enhance its capacity to process local health information and to attract resources from government and private funding agencies.

The Health Department, as many other health authorities across the nation, is carefully tracking the developments associated with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. With the enactment of this law came the creation of the most substantial effort in a long time to fund Public Health infrastructure, community-based health programs and prevention initiatives. This includes the creation of the largest ever Prevention and Public Health Fund and the issuing of the first National Prevention Strategy, which offers an unprecedented opportunity to build up the necessary local infrastructure for carrying out comprehensive public health functions. The New Haven Health Department continues building partnerships to access those resources and to enhance municipal capacity to reduce health disparities and promote conditions for a healthier City.

 

Mario Garcia, MD, M.Sc. MPH
Director of Public Health