452: Making Federal Connections, Malaria in the U.S.

JANSON SILVERS: 

This is Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, June 30, 2023. I'm Janson Silvers. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

ANNE ZINK: 

I think having a low threshold to ask and say, 'Do you need help with this? This is what I'm seeing. Help me understand why this was,' can really help to build those relationships and those connections.

JANSON SILVERS: 

ATHO President, Dr. Anne Zink on the help ASTHO provides members needing connections with the federal government.

ANNE ZINK: 

You know, the federal government has, you know, 50 different states, territories to look towards. And it can be a lot of noise. And so ASTHO does an amazing job of helping to consolidate all of our voices, helping to make sure that blue, red, everyone in between, has a voice and a seat at the table.

JANSON SILVERS: 

Zink is Alaska's chief medical officer. She says ASTHO is ready to help members manage their federal relationships.

ANNE ZINK: 

Yeah, the best advice I have for SHOs looking to build federal connections is to use ASTHO and to lean in and as much as possible. You know, I think most of us are good people trying to do good work in really hard conditions. And so being willing to be open, be available, hearing what our federal partners priorities are, and finding ways that we can partner with them.

JANSON SILVERS: 

Zink talks about relationships in a new ASTHO video conversation. You can watch it using the link in the show notes.

Cases of malaria have been discovered in Texas and Florida. Dr. Ben Beard, with the CDC Division of Vector-Borne Diseases discusses the current situation.

BENJAMIN BEARD: 

This is the first time we've had locally transmitted malaria here in the United States in 20 years. And so that's pretty remarkable. It's not exactly unthinkable because we have the mosquitoes that carry it here.

JANSON SILVERS: 

Beard says vector-borne diseases can be impacted by climate change.

BENJAMIN BEARD: 

When you have milder winters, earlier springs, longer, warmer summers, later falls, all of this can contribute to, in the case of ticks, them coming out earlier in the season, staying out later. In the case of mosquitoes, the warm temperatures, in particular, allow them to go through their lifecycle a lot more quickly.

JANSON SILVERS: 

However, climate change may not be responsible for the cases we're seeing in Texas and Florida.

BENJAMIN BEARD: 

You know, in this situation, there's no compelling reason to think that these were caused or influenced by climate change. And it's important to realize that prior to the 1950s, malaria was endemic in large parts of the US, including Florida, and Texas, and the mosquitoes that transmit this disease are found throughout southern reaches the US.

JANSON SILVERS: 

If we can continue proper disease surveillance and treatment, this may not become a larger issue.

BENJAMIN BEARD: 

And the nice thing about malaria, if you can consider it a nice thing, humans are the reservoir for that and so, for that disease, so if you identify people who are sick, and you treat them, then they are not infective to other mosquitoes, as opposed to diseases like West Nile virus, for example, where birds and small mammals can also be reservoirs for those diseases.

JANSON SILVERS: 

With the confirmation of locally acquired malaria in two states ASTHO has published a blog article advising health officials on what they should know about these cases. You can find that article along with helpful resources on the subject in the show notes.

Also today, when we think of health equity, we also need to think of including the LGBTQ community. In an article for Health Affairs, John Auerbach, Senior Vice President for Public Health at ICF says public health is at a crossroads.

JOHN AUERBACH: 

We wrote about LGBTQ health being at a crossroads because on the one hand, we've seen great improvements over the decades, strong response to monkeypox, recent changes in blood donations for gay men, much of the HIV response, but on the other hand, we have growing concern about recent policies that target the LGBTQ population, because those will have negative health consequences.

JANSON SILVERS: 

Auerbach says the diversity within the LGBTQ community presents its own challenges. And the only way to overcome that is through data because we don't know what we don't know.

JOHN AUERBACH: 

There's much that we don't know about the health of these populations because data on sexual orientation and non-binary gender identity are not routinely collected. But there have been some promising developments. One is the White House recently issued a new report that provided guidance to federal agencies and to others on the importance of systematically capturing information on sexual orientation and gender identity in routine data collection activities.

JANSON SILVERS: 

Auerbach's full article is in the shownotes.

Poor mental health is a rising issue among high school students. ASTHO's new webinar series focuses on addressing comprehensive youth mental health and wellbeing. O'Keyla Cooper has more.

O'KEYLA COOPER: 

Join us on July 12 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time for an enlightening discussion on schools' vital role in providing mental health services to students, including those with serious mental illness. Gain valuable insights from the National Center for School Mental Health on building sustainable mental health systems and learn about North Carolina's efforts to improve access to mental health services in schools. Register today through the link in the show notes.

JANSON SILVERS: 

That'll do it for today's newscast. We're off next week for the July 4 break, but we'll have some of our best episodes of the year for you starting on July 5. With more than 400 shows now in our two year history. It was hard to choose, but we think these are great episodes to revisit or hear for the first time. Then we're back Monday, July 10 with the latest ASTHO news and information. I'm Janson Silvers you're listening to Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great holiday.