Adrienne Ammerman, founder and CEO of Arclet, explains how her platform will help health communicators; Amelia Poulin, ASTHO assistant director of emerging infectious disease, breaks down a blog article on what states are doing to combat syphilis and...
Adrienne Ammerman, founder and CEO of Arclet, explains how her platform will help health communicators; Amelia Poulin, ASTHO assistant director of emerging infectious disease, breaks down a blog article on what states are doing to combat syphilis and congenital syphilis; and Dr. Robbie Goldstein, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and an ASTHO member, will give the keynote address for the Advances in Global Disease Surveillance event.
ASTHO Blog Article: States Amending Policies to Slow Congenital Syphilis Increases
Advances in Global Disease Surveillance: An Introduction to BEACON Web Page
ASTHO Web Page: Evidence-Based Public Health
JANSON SILVERS:
This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Thursday, April 24, 2025. I'm Janson Silvers. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
ADRIENNE AMMERMAN:
I saw that people doing this work, especially in smaller or underfunded areas often didn't have the tools or the time that they needed to create and share high-quality content in the online spaces where we know Americans are increasingly getting their health information on social media platforms.
SILVERS:
Adrienne Ammerman is the founder of Arclet, a tool that helps health communicators.
AMMERMAN:
It's an online platform that helps public health teams across the country easily find messages, customize them with their local logos and details, and share them on social media, and it also includes tools to collect feedback from the community and track how well the messages are performing.
SILVERS:
Here, Ammerman gives us an example of how it can work.
AMMERMAN:
If there's a measles outbreak, a health department can use Arclet to search for trusted messages about symptoms vaccines. What to do if you've been exposed. They can choose a post, add their own branding, like their county logo or a hotline number, and schedule it to go out on Facebook or Instagram, all in just a few clicks.
SILVERS:
Ammerman sees Arclet as a way to make us all better at communicating important messages to our communities.
AMMERMAN:
I've seen over the years, just from my work, that we're often very siloed in health communications, and it needs to be easier to share our resources, and our learning, and our best practice with each other, so that we're not wasting our precious time and resources on duplicating efforts and recreating the wheel.
SILVERS:
More information on Arclet is in the show notes.
ASTHO's Amelia Poulin recently penned a blog article on what states are doing to combat syphilis and congenital syphilis. Poulin says one of the largest barriers is access to timely testing and treatment.
AMELIA POULIN:
When we're predicting health outcomes, we often hear that your zip code is more important than your genetic code, and we're seeing that the same with STIs. In rural areas and certain urban areas, there's a lack of accessible clinics or specialized services creating barriers to timely testing and treatment.
SILVERS:
New data reveals why this is such a big deal.
POULIN:
The latest data show that timely testing and adequate treatment during pregnancy could have prevented up to 80% of cases in 2023, where there were nearly 4,000 cases of congenital syphilis that resulted in 279 still births and infant deaths. So, the policy opportunities in this area are great.
SILVERS:
The blog article also dives into what certain states are doing to help.
POULIN:
We talked about a New York bill that would require health insurance to cover certain STI home test kits. And this is a really helpful policy, because in states with large rural populations like New York, it may be 45 minutes to the nearest clinic.
SILVERS:
The full article is online now. Use the link in the show notes to read it today.
Also, ASTHO member, Dr. Robbie Goldstein, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, will give the keynote address today for the Advances in Global Disease Surveillance event hosted by Boston University's Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. Learn more about the event by clicking the link in the show notes.
Finally, if you ever need help with a specific topic or initiative, make sure you take a look at ASTHO's Evidence-Based Technical Packages. These packages unite interventions for greater impact on public health challenges. The included topics cover the most important and trending topics in public health, so use the link in the show notes to read them.
That'll do it for today. We're back tomorrow morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Janson Silvers. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.
