547: Listening and Data in Native Communities, Congress Meets a Deadline

ROBERT JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, November 17, 2023. I'm Robert Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

MELISSA MAGSTADT: 

Everything that we do in public health in the state of South Dakota has to be about collaborations and partnerships and working together.

JOHNSON: 

South Dakota Health Secretary Melissa Magstadt works with nine sovereign nations in her state.

MAGSTADT: 

I think one of the ways out here that we're approach our Tribal persons is from the place of humility. I think I like to spend a lot of time in the posture of sitting at the feet of the wisdom of the sacred out of our tribal populations.

JOHNSON: 

Magstadt also uses data to illustrate the disparities between Native and non-Native communities.

MAGSTADT: 

One of my data points that is my North Star in working with Tribal populations is the fact that we lose about 50% of our White population by age 80. So, we're we're living a fairly robust old age, but we lose 50% of our Native population by age 58. So, there's a 22-year gap between where we lose most of our White persons versus where we lose most of our Tribal persons and until that gap is smaller, we've got work to do. 

JOHNSON: 

She urged his colleagues to leverage data to uncover the real challenges happening in their jurisdictions.

MAGSTADT: 

Go find your data, go look at it with clear eyes, and have a real honest look to what's happening in your state and then knowledge is power.

JOHNSON: 

ASTHO recognizes Native American Heritage Month with links to several South Dakota web pages. You can visit them by clicking the links in the show notes.

If you haven't noticed by now, it is Friday, and the federal government is still open. ASTHO's Carolyn Mullen talks about the shutdown that wasn't in this week's View from Washington, DC report. Carolyn Mullen, good to see you here on the newscast. Happy Thanksgiving early. 

CAROLYN MULLEN: 

Happy holidays. I am so thrilled for the holiday season. For the first time in recent memory, I won't be working on congressional appropriations bills because they actually avoided a government shutdown.

JOHNSON: 

You've got to be really pumped about that, because this could have been a much more raucous holiday season.

MULLEN: 

Absolutely. I was sitting here two, three weeks ago really worried about the prospect of a government shutdown and Speaker Johnson actually pulled a rabbit out of a hat and we've avoided it through a pretty complex piece of legislation. The bill that will be signed into law provides two deadlines for funding. The first deadline is January 19, for WIC and FDA programs and the second deadline is for CDC, HRSA, SAMSA, and EPA programs. So, it extends funding at the current levels. So, no cuts through those deadlines but Congress is going to be right back where they started after the holiday season.

JOHNSON: 

And you've heard from some members about this, they have questions.

MULLEN: 

So, I've received a couple of emails, there's a lot of confusion in the field because of these two deadlines. What I like to say to people is if you're funded from HHS federal funding, from CDC, HERSA, or SAMSA, the deadline for funding is February 2 at current levels. If you operate a WIC center, for example, the deadline is January 19. I'm hopeful that when Congress returns they will come up with a long-term solution so we can stop oscillating from this CR, maybe shutdown CR environment but we'll wait to see what happens in the new year.

JOHNSON: 

As if that wasn't enough confusion, there was other action on spending bills this week made things a little bit unusual. Tell us about that.

MULLEN: 

Absolutely. This week, the House considered the fiscal year 2024 funding for the Labor Health and Human Services and Education appropriation bill. This bill proposes funding for the remainder of the fiscal year for the federal agencies we care about. Unfortunately, this bill also provides a 28% cut from current levels and the outright elimination of some programs, but this bill actually didn't even get voted on in the house because it's so bad. The cuts are so terrible. It had to be pulled from consideration. So, we don't know where we are with full-year funding. The Senate, meanwhile, is operating in a very bipartisan way and their bill has been fully marked up. So again, everything's going to come to fruition in January, when Congress really needs to solve this funding issue once and for all.

JOHNSON: 

January deadline, February deadline, but wait, there's more. There's an April deadline as well tell us about that one.

MULLEN: 

There is as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act that was signed into law earlier this year. Included in there is a provision that would provide a sequester order, and in current laws says about 1%. What's really important for our listeners to understand is that 1% could go up to as much as 6%. It just depends on how all of these final funding negotiations pan out. So, we're watching that very closely. We will be connecting with the White House in the new year to better understand if it's going to be a 1% cut, 3%, or 6% because the current law is pretty complicated. Nothing like this has been done before. So, we are going to be seeking more information so that we can inform our members what to expect in April.

JOHNSON: 

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we're thankful that you're on the case.

MULLEN: 

Thanks so much, Robert.

JOHNSON: 

You can read more about the work to avoid a federal shutdown and to see the full text of the bill passed by the U.S. House using the link in the show notes.

Also, today, maps and data dashboards can help agencies solve complex public health problems. This week, people across the globe celebrated the power of mapping and data visualization on GIS Day. Jared Shoultz is a GIS expert.

JARED SHOULTZ: 

Across climate change in health, there's a lot of use cases, developing resilient infrastructure, you know, community plans that consider, you know, potential rises in sea level change and increases in temperature that are going to result in more heat events or need for heating or cooling, and monitoring, changing habitats to see how diseases are moving. 

JOHNSON: 

Shoultz says GIS has the power to clarify problems and solutions.

SHOULTZ: 

You know, this technology is really essential to be able to, you know, pull data from a variety of sources, overlay that data, analyze that data in a common, you know, framework to really understand, you know, what things are impacting the overall health of our community and improve health outcomes in a way that's transparent, and easy to understand by the general public.

ROBERT JOHNSON: 

Learn more about GIS Day by visiting the links in the show notes.

Finally, this morning, Public Health Thank You Day is Monday, November 20. As we interview people for the newscast, we've been asking them to tell us what they're thankful for. You can hear those comments each day between now and thanksgiving. Today's thank you note is by Esther Muna, territorial health official in the Northern Mariana Islands.

ESTHER MUNA: 

I'm thankful for my family, and I'm thankful for my family at work, and family at home. I am also thankful for the good Lord, you know, for really making sure that still protecting us, you know, still guiding us, and despite the fact that, you know, we have some challenges over this last couple of several months. I would say that, you know, I've never said no to people, and I think I the fact that I wasn't able to do that I didn't get to do that. I believe that God was with me, and God was with, you know, with all of us and really watching over us. I'm really thankful for him.

ROBERT JOHNSON: 

The American Public Health Association has a web page with resources to help us celebrate the day. We have the link in the show notes.

Before we go, we'd like to remind you to follow this newscast on your podcast player and ASTHO on social media. We are on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. That'll do it for today.

We were back Monday morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Robert Johnson. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great weekend.