536: Workforce Care Initiative, JUUL Settlements

ROBERT JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Wednesday, November 1, 2023. I'm Robert Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

TOM ST. LOUIS: 

We develop the culture of care initiative, really out of the need to prioritize supporting the public health workforce, especially here in our agency, coming out of three years of intense work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

JOHNSON: 

Tom St. Louis leads workforce development at the Connecticut Department of Public Health, where the new culture of care initiative aims to help staff recover from the pandemic.

LOUIS:

So, care stands for communication, assistance, respect, and empathy. And so, for us, those were the things that we thought if we could really enhance our ability to communicate well with each other, we can adopt a service mentality by assisting each other.

JOHNSON: 

St. Louis says the program enjoys strong support from the health department to the governor's office.

LOUIS:

So, from our commissioner, Commissioner Juthani, our deputy commissioners, we've just had really top-down excitement about this program and support and luckily, the resource backing to really put it into effect in a meaningful way and hopefully make big changes in terms of recovery and resilience for our workforce.

JOHNSON: 

Staff is encouraged by the attention to their health and well-being but St. Louis says any agency that pursues this work needs to be patient.

LOUIS:

And a lot of us are used to identifying a problem, tackling it, really getting to work on it, and then hoping to resolve it as quickly as possible. The work of being trauma informed, the work of recovery, and resilience in our workforce through the work of mental health support. That's long, slow, difficult work.

JOHNSON: 

ASTHO has gathered resources for agencies looking to do similar work, you can visit the PH-HERO workforce resource center using the link in the show notes.

46 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia are among those who've reached settlements in their cases against e-cigarette maker, JUUL. The agreements are worth more than 2 billion dollars. This is ASTHO's Amy Ciarlo.

AMY CIARLO: 

Multi-state settlements can be handled several different ways depending on the jurisdiction and the terms of the agreement. Some attorneys general may use their discretion to allocate the funds. And I've suggested that the money will go towards prevention and education programs to reduce youth e-cigarette use.

JOHNSON: 

Ciarlo and others hoped jurisdictions will use the money to help people who use tobacco and related products.

CIARLO: 

Ideally, the funds ought to be directed towards effective evidence-based tobacco control and prevention measures. The JUUL settlements serve as a great opportunity to address youth vaping through funding education and prevention programs, treatment and cessation programs, and research into long-term health effects of vaping just to name a few.

JOHNSON: 

North Carolina was the first state to file suit against JUUL in 2019. Four states and four island jurisdictions have yet to settle with the company.

Also today, ASTHO wants to help agencies train for possible disruptions to the supply of medications used to treat opioid use disorder. O'Keyla Cooper has that story.

O'KEYLA COOPER: 

ASTHO's Opioid Preparedness Exercise in a Box offers states and territories essential materials to enhance their response to disruptions in opioid prescription access, providing a flexible and adaptable solution to improve preparedness, and response protocols. You can access these tools by clicking the link in the show notes.

JOHNSON: 

Finally, this morning, ASTHO's CEO Mike Fraser and the de Beaumont Foundation President and CEO Brian Castrucci are out with a new book today. It's called Building Strategic Skills for Better Health. It gives public health professionals the tools and knowledge they need to develop workforce readiness skills. You can get your copy now using 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're on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

That'll do it for today. We're back tomorrow 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 day.