Public health doesn’t stop at hospitals or health departments, it lives in barbershops, grocery stores, schools, and small businesses. In this episode for National Public Health Week, Megan DeNubila-Griffin, ASTHO assistant director of chronic disease and health improvement, explores how agencies are building meaningful partnerships with non-traditional community players to address the social and environmental factors that shape health. From collaborating with local business owners to rethinking transportation and food access, this conversation highlights how public health leaders act as conveners, bringing the right voices to the table and asking who’s missing. Megan shares real-world examples, including a multi-year collaboration in Walworth County, Wisconsin, that shows how cross-sector partnerships can drive measurable impact.
Public health doesn’t stop at hospitals or health departments, it lives in barbershops, grocery stores, schools, and small businesses. In this episode for National Public Health Week, Megan DeNubila-Griffin, ASTHO assistant director of chronic disease and health improvement, explores how agencies are building meaningful partnerships with non-traditional community players to address the social and environmental factors that shape health. From collaborating with local business owners to rethinking transportation and food access, this conversation highlights how public health leaders act as conveners, bringing the right voices to the table and asking who’s missing. Megan shares real-world examples, including a multi-year collaboration in Walworth County, Wisconsin, that shows how cross-sector partnerships can drive measurable impact.
Leveraging Healthy People 2030 to Build Non-Traditional Multisector Partnerships | ASTHO
Pima County Elevates Collaboration with IT to Advance Data Modernization | ASTHO
John Sheehan (0:00): This is Public Health Review Morning Edition for Thursday, 04/09/2026. I'm John Sheehan with news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Today is day four of National Public Health Week, and we'll be talking about the ways individuals partner with public health. Megan Dinubula Griffin, ASTHO Assistant Director of Chronic Disease and Health Improvement, explores how agencies are building meaningful partnerships with nontraditional community players to address the social and factors that shape health. From collaborating with local business owners to rethinking transportation and food access, she'll highlight how public health leaders act as conveners, bringing the right voices to the table and asking who's missing.
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (0:43): A few nontraditional partners might include places like grocery stores, banks, restaurants, other local businesses. Those are really pillars of the community, and these nontraditional partners have earned trust and have ability to reach a broad group of community members. The positions this positions them to be a great resource to address community factors that influence health. An example of this might be a public health agency could partner with the owner of a popular barbershop to help spread awareness about population health issues and educate folks about programs available to them. Nontraditional partners are also essential to addressing nonmedical factors because of their vested interest that can help advance public health goals.
Megan Dinubula Griffin (1:35): Another example, could be a local business relies on things like transportation and urban infrastructure to really thrive. So they may be invested in planning around transportation infrastructure policies that also impact health and access to care.
John Sheehan (1:52): That's really interesting. Places that you might not think of as community centers, but totally are because that's where everyone congregates, and that's where people access local infrastructure through grocery stores and bus stops and barber shops. It's really interesting.
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (2:06): Absolutely.
John Sheehan (2:07): And how do agencies sort of continue that collaboration and those relationships through time? Because reaching out once is relatively easy, doing it long term is harder.
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (2:20): Yes. Definitely. Sustainability is top of mind. This sort of collaboration really requires public health professionals to take the time to build trust with the community. This can be done by regularly attending local gatherings and meetings to jointly identify areas of interest.
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (2:39): Public health staff can lay the foundation for working with the communities in their areas of concern. The toolkit also highlights key areas for sustainability, like ways to keep partners engaged over time and the importance of celebrating small and big wins.
John Sheehan (2:57): And some of the nonmedical factors you point out, that impact health environments where people live, where they work, where their kids go to school. How does sort of identifying those spaces and those factors help you identify the partnerships that you should go after?
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (3:15): Yeah. By looking at those nontraditional medical factors that impact health, we can engage diverse sectors for an upstream holistic approach to enhancing health. For instance, if you think more broadly about how a community can increase access to food as part of the healthy people 2030 objective around nutrition and healthy eating, you can really see the benefit of bringing in nontraditional partners like grocery stores, convenience stores, maybe even dollar stores that book shop at. Public health has an important role in bringing together partners who can support a preventative approach instead of treating individuals with health conditions they developed. Multi sector partners can work on a population level to help prevent them before they become an issue.
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (4:08): This kind of partnership becomes a win win for all, leading to community health benefits, cost savings, increased business, shared resources, and and more.
John Sheehan (4:20): And could you share a success story from Healthy People two thousand thirty? One of these multi sector collaborations?
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (4:29): Yeah. Absolutely. Our partners in Walworth County, the health department there has done an incredible job of providing support and building sustainability for these multi sector collaborations really through their work on community health assessment and improvement planning, that process using Healthy People twenty thirty. Some of the nontraditional partners they engaged with included a community development, specifically the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, as well as partners in economic development, which was the Walworth County Economic Development Alliance. This was a multi year process through which the community came together and was able to learn some valuable lessons from their work.
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (5:19): This included things like the importance of communicating the value of partnership, alignment with already existing work, and developing those real authentic relationships.
John Sheehan (5:30): And they've they've had a tangible effect in the community and have extended their reach within it?
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (5:35): Yeah. So they've been able to measure these outcomes through their work on community health assessment and improvement planning and document those wins within their plan. And then ideally, what they'll do is they'll use that data and information to go at the next round of planning for their next community health assessment and plan. So it's a continual improvement process using that data and quality improvement approach.
John Sheehan (6:03): So Megan, this is National Public Health Week, and today's theme is you partner with public health, sort of that idea of individual participation with public health. And I'm wondering if you could reflect on, sort of as public health professionals, the importance of working with communities and getting community buy in, and the importance of investments in communities to, to strengthen those relationships.
Megan DeNubila-Griffin (6:28): I think it's very important that individuals and the community are involved in, the outcomes that public health is working on. Really, it should be what's driving public health's work. And so the ask to individuals in the community would be to be engaged with, local groups and community organizations where they can bring their voice to the table and provide input on what's most important to them, regarding their health and the health of their community, and to engage with those public health professionals when they do come to the table, is all really great and and would be welcomed.
John Sheehan (7:12): Megan Dinubula Griffin is ASTHO's Assistant Director of Chronic Disease and Health Improvement. What does it take to modernize public health data and make it last? In Pima County, Arizona, the answer wasn't just new technology, it was partnership. In a new ASTHO blog post, we hear how the Pima County Health Department transformed its relationship with IT, from misaligned priorities and communication gaps to a unified cross department team driving real progress. With support from federal infrastructure funding, they've built trust, created shared goals, and launched an innovative data works model that's changing how data gets done.
John Sheehan (7:50): Find a link to the post in the show notes. Stay informed on the latest federal developments with the View from Washington DC segment on ASTHO's Public Health Review Morning Edition podcast. This special feature offers timely updates from Capitol Hill, so be sure to subscribe and never miss an episode. Carolyn Mullen and Jeffrey Akoma provide public health policy analysis, federal updates, insights on emerging actions, and what they mean for state and territorial public health. This has been Public Health Review Morning Edition.
John Sheehan (8:20): I'm John Sheehan for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
