Christy Jones, president and CEO of the Monday Solutions Group, details how leaders can benefit from skill development in preparation for several upcoming ASTHO Ignite Leadership Series webinars; Dr. Allison Arwady, director of the National Center for...
Christy Jones, president and CEO of the Monday Solutions Group, details how leaders can benefit from skill development in preparation for several upcoming ASTHO Ignite Leadership Series webinars; Dr. Allison Arwady, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at CDC, tells us how data has influenced real change in the fight against opioids; and on Thursday, April 24, ASTHO will host a webinar on the benefits of successful academic health department partnerships.
ASTHO Webinar: Performance Management Techniques for Successful Decision-Making
CDC Web Page: CDC Reports Nearly 24% Decline in U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths
ASTHO Webinar: Exploring Successful Academic Health Department Partnerships
SUMMER JOHNSON:
This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Monday, April 21, 2025. I'm Summer Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
CHRISTY JONES:
So, whenever you find a leader who engages in that level of training, you're really finding a leader that's, number one, excited about their position of leadership, but also looking to build a high-performing team.
JOHNSON:
Christy Jones leads the Monday Solutions Group. Jones is facilitating several upcoming sessions of ASTHO's Ignite Leadership Series, including one tomorrow.
JONES:
If you are investing in yourself, let me just tell you, you're going to gain a deeper sense of self-awareness, and that is critical for a leader. You're also going to have enhanced communication and interpersonal skills; super important when you're talking about building a high-performing team.
JOHNSON:
Jones educates public health leaders about skills necessary to lead successful teams.
JONES:
Even when you think about enhancing decision-making skills, that's critical for leaders. You know, developing emotional intelligence a big one, because in order for a leader to understand, you know, the team that you lead, you also got to understand your own emotional space and also promoting accountability, like that is a huge one when you're talking about these particular traits and things that we're going to be looking into.
JOHNSON:
Central to those high-performing teams must be a leader who wants to continue to grow. When leaders don't make time for that, it can be costly. Here's Jones again.
JONES:
So, you'll start to see a decreased morale and engagement, or you'll see basically reduced productivity and efficiency, and even increased conflict and turnover. And I know that as public health leaders, we don't want to see those things occur.
JOHNSON:
The next Ignite, Accelerate, and Activate webinar is tomorrow, Tuesday, April 22 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. Registration is closed for this event, but if you're interested in learning more, you can register for the next session, which takes place on May 7. That one's called Strengthening Teams, Decisions, and Performance Management Skills.
On Friday's episode of this newscast, we brought you new CDC data that shows real progress in the fight against opioids. Dr. Allison Arwady is the director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at CDC. She tells us that assembling data quickly has influenced this progress.
ALLISON ARWADY:
We're able to see how is the drug supply changing. How are new threats emerging? How does that look different in one part of the country versus another? Our labs, for example, are sending out every single month, to public health labs around the country, the latest 1400 substances that they should be testing for, and it's helped us use that data to really understand, first of all, how the threat itself is changing.
JOHNSON:
And, in turn, local communities are able to respond in real-time.
ARWADY:
If, for example, a state or local health department sees a surge in real-time overdoses in their community. Maybe there's a bad batch that's come in, or some new threat. Right away they are seeing, that same day, they're able to send out the alert, make sure that the outreach people are getting where they need to be, make sure the naloxone is getting there, making sure the emergency departments know what they need to do to be able to respond appropriately.
JOHNSON:
While the drop in opioid overdoses is encouraging, Arwady says what's important is how we use the information.
ARWADY:
So, I think the most important thing is we do know what works. Here we are seeing real progress, that progress across all sectors is based on the public health data. We're not about admiring the problem. We're about making sure we take the interventions that work and we implement those as quickly as we can around the country.
JOHNSON:
You can get a firsthand look at the data. The link is in the show notes.
Also, happening later this week, on Thursday, April 24, ASTHO will host a webinar on the benefits of successful academic health department partnerships. Learn more about them and how to create one. You can sign up using the link in the show notes.
Finally, this morning, stay up to date on all the latest public health news by signing up for ASTHO's Public Health Weekly newsletter. The newsletter is created for public health professionals and dives into all the latest news you need to know. There's a link in the show notes to sign up.
That'll do it for today. We're back tomorrow morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Summer Johnson, you're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.
