913: 100 Miles in May, Gathering Community Engagement Metrics

JANSON SILVERS: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, May 23, 2025. I'm Janson Silvers. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

ANNE ZINK: 

The idea behind it is that you can do 100 miles of anything or a combination of different anythings, and they count towards miles, and it's a fundraising event.

SILVERS: 

Dr. Anne Zink is a former ASTHO president and the former chief medical officer for the State of Alaska, and now is a senior clinical fellow at the Yale School of Public Health. As we make our way into the summer months, Zink tells us about one of her favorite fundraisers, 100 Miles in May, which counts much more than running and walking toward the miles.

ZINK: 

You can go to the website, but there's everything on there, from like cleaning fish to working at an auto body start to, you know, heavy duty house cleaning versus light house cleaning. And they all count towards your activity miles and you see them adequately.

SILVERS: 

The initiative is run by an organization Zink loves.

ZINK: 

Healthy Futures Alaska, which is essentially a not-for-profit group that helps to get kids active. And so what they do is they help to provide supplies and resources to elementary, middle school, and high school kids to make sure that they can participate in physical education.

SILVERS: 

The whole idea is to get people healthier by getting people moving. Zink says the idea of simple movement has become undervalued in today's world.

ZINK: 

I also think sometimes, in this hyper-competitive world, you know, we think that you're not actually doing movement, if you're not running a triathlon, but just going out for a walk with your spouse, you know, for 30 minutes, or parking your car further away from the workplace, so that you walk a little bit further.

SILVERS: 

Anyone can join the 100 Miles in May challenge which fundraises for children in Alaska. We have a link in the show notes where you can learn more.

ASTHO's Anna Bradley recently worked on a blog article that aims to help public health leaders with their community engagement efforts.

ANNA BRADLEY: 

So, the blog is about community engagement metrics, and it was really from an ad hoc conversation, a peer to peer gathering of people who are wondering how to better interact and better measure their interactions with the community to tell the story of their work.

SILVERS: 

Bradley says getting community engagement metrics isn't easy.

BRADLEY: 

You know, one of the biggest challenges is that it's difficult to report qualitative data or the stories and context around public health programs in a spreadsheet or a dashboard, which is the primary method for collecting and sharing data about program impact.

SILVERS: 

Luckily, Bradley has some advice.

BRADLEY: 

I think, asking questions about how, when, and which community voices are at the table to shape agency or programmatic decisions and priorities, assessing the extent to which engagement practices are reciprocal and transparent, and whether resources like funding and staff time are being allocated to support community engagement, might be useful starting points

SILVERS: 

For even more strategies, you can read that ASTHO blog article. It's online now, and we have a link in the show notes.

Plus, ASTHO will bring together preparedness experts from across the country in less than a week from now. O'Keyla Cooper explains.

O'KEYLA COOPER: 

Join ASTHO on Wednesday, May 28 at 1 p.m. Eastern Time for a webinar on administrative preparedness for public health emergencies. Learn practical strategies, tools, and real-world examples from jurisdictions improving their emergency response processes. Register now using the link in the show notes.

SILVERS: 

Finally, if you're looking for a great addition to your public health team, publichealthcareers.org may be where you want to start. Qualified top tier candidates are there for the taking and are ready to be your next great team member. Follow the link in the show notes to learn more.

That'll do it for today. We're off on Monday for the holiday, but we'll be back on Tuesday 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 holiday weekend.