David Remmert has a phrase for his decades-long profession in public well being, a phrase to summarize two, 17-year stints at each the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District and most just lately, the DeWitt-Piatt Bi-County Health Department.

“Thirty-one years, I would say, is an anomaly,” Remmert stated in a current interview.

Now retired after his most up-to-date function as administrator on the DeWitt-Piatt well being division, Remmert is now an assistant professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, a part of a brand new public well being diploma program that launched this fall.

After a long time of decreasing funding and an outflow of employees within the public well being sector nationwide, Remmert stated he is hopeful {that a} renewed sense of the function of public well being employees after COVID-19 might result in extra individuals selecting the sphere — and staying lengthy sufficient to make his tenure much less of an “anomaly.” At the identical time, the McLean County Health Department is making ready to rent extra employees due to a grant geared toward bolstering the general public well being workforce’s ranks after the pandemic.

The first cohort of scholars into the School of Nursing and Health Sciences’ public well being diploma program is small, about 5, Remmert stated.

“We didn’t complete the process to create that major until around February, so we’re still growing into it a little bit right now,” he stated. “But I think creating this new major falls at a certain time where high schoolers who spent part of their … career in isolation — now they have a pretty good idea of what public health is all about.”

Remmert known as the timing “opportune” since, as is the case with personal sector healthcare as nicely, public healthcare has felt a “crush” from from an more and more retiring workforce, in keeping with a assessment of that work sector revealed earlier this year in the Annual Review of Public Health.

“We have to replace all of these staff that are leaving public health,” he stated. “We have to prepare both for the fact that public health professionals and nursing professionals are retiring now. That’s where the universities come in.”

Annual Review of Public Health’s have a look at the general public well being workforce famous a 23% enhance within the variety of undergraduates making use of to public well being packages from 2019 to 2020, however famous it’s unclear whether or not — and never assured — that “increase will be sustained over the long-term.”

The assessment famous additionally famous there is no assure that graduates of a public well being diploma program will pursue work in authorities public well being efforts, though Remmert stated he would encourage that path, having chosen it himself.

“I loved it. It was different every day. It’s a great field and it’s an opportunity to do a lot of good,” he stated. “There is an altruistic aspect of it.”

McLean County Public Health Administrator Jessica McKnight, who’s been on the head of that company since 2019, stated MCHD plans to emphasise that reality when the division rolls out new recruitment materials.

“The benefits include a pension, holidays and weekends off — but just overall job satisfaction (via) connection to your community and being able to see and feel the direct impact of your work,” McKnight stated.

The recruitment efforts MCHD is planning for are due to an almost $280,000 grant award the company is making ready to make use of over 5 years as soon as the Illinois Department of Public Health supplies suggestions or approval to MCHD’s proposed finances.

The cash is being administered by the state and known as the Strengthening Illinois Public Health Administration grant; its origins are from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which distributed round $86 million to states for native public well being companies.

The goal of the cash, according to grant documents, is to assist the “hiring, retention, training, retraining, and other efforts to support the public health workforce.”

In addition to recruitment of recent staff, McKnight stated MCHD additionally hopes to make use of the grant funding to develop its outreach to rural elements of the county.

Although its providers can be found to anybody in McLean County, MCHD’s location in downtown Bloomington might show difficult for some individuals to entry.

“We’ve been looking ahead at taking some of our public health services mobile, specifically out into Bloomington-Normal and across our rural communities,” she stated. “We’ve written into the budget some positions that would help us with outreach for that.”

Although public well being departments acquired a spotlight throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for his or her function in offering vaccinations, testing and enforcement of mitigation measures, each Remmert and McKnight emphasised the work encompasses greater than that — and might be simply as important throughout the subsequent pandemic.

McKnight stated a part of the rationale for amping up MCHD’s outreach efforts is expounded to the general public well being division’s function as a sort-of catch for those who might in any other case fall by means of the healthcare system’s cracks.

Via the cell outreach, McKnight stated the company will convey “immunizations, dental, our communicable disease program and doing some testing and treatment … because the McLean County Health Department is for all of McLean County.”

Remmert stated earlier than he retired from his public well being function, he started making a “new organizational chart” associated to funding and addressing “the next pandemic.”

“What we went through with COVID is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine an infection like COVID that is just as communicable but twice as deadly. That’s what is looming on the horizon — and how are we going to be prepared to deal with it?” he stated.