Melissa Atkins, epidemiologist for Northwest Health District 1-1, with colleagues during the Sellers-McCroan Award Luncheon.

The 84th annual meeting and conference of the Georgia Public Health Association (GPHA) brought together more than 350 national, state, district and county public health employees, federal partners, exhibitors and sponsors to the Grand Hyatt Atlanta April 22 and 23. This year's theme was Journey Across Georgia: Leading the way to Healthier Georgians.

 

Each year, GPHA members gather at the conference meeting to network, educate, collaborate and recognize peers who have excelled in public health, public policy and/or public awareness. 

 

Camara Jones, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology and Laboratory Services at CDC, knew she had to attend because the conference was so close to headquarters in Atlanta.

 

"It is not only important for CDC to be active both nationally and globally," said Jones. "We are in Georgia and in Atlanta. I think that building relationships with people and learning information and perspectives from local levels, and networking, really make all of us who are trying to do work in public health more effective."

 

Jones also wanted to get to know more about GPHA and its membership as a nominee for the office of president-elect for the American Public Health Association (APHA).

 

"As I pursue this national office, I want to bring the voices of Georgians and the interests of Georgians to our national association."

 

DPH's Office of Health Indicators for Planning displayed their new community health assessment system to track the health status of communities in Georgia.

Gordon Freymann, DPH's director of the Office of Health Indicators for Planning (OHIP), brought his team to discuss their latest release of the community health needs assessment dashboard.

 

"This is the best place to show what we do [in OHIP]," said Freymann. "We get a lot of interaction with a lot of people both from the state and district levels and are able to show some of the latest things that we have developed to help people to do their jobs. Basically with a click [of the computer mouse] or two, you can get just about every [piece of] information you would want concerning the health status for your county."

 

For almost three decades, GPHA has recognized the work and memory of Thomas Fort Sellers Sr., M.D. and John Edgar McCroan Jr., Ph.D. The Sellers-McCroan Award recognizes a recipient in public health in epidemiology and/or laboratory services at the state, district or county levels, or in academia or in hospitals and is awarded during the conference.

 

This year's recipient is Northwest Health District 1-1 epidemiologist Melissa Atkins, MPH, who started her career as an epidemiologist more than seven years ago.

 

Elizabeth Carter, an MPH student at Georgia Southern University, spoke with DPH's chief epidemiologist A. Rana Bayakly about career expectations as an epidemiologist.

"I greatly appreciate and understand the background of this award and what it means to get it," said Atkins. "It is a great honor that I accept this award and just want to dedicate it to all epidemiologists and communicable disease specialists [who] do their work every day in this field to help Georgians. I want to also thank the support of our local health directors, community partners and health departments for working together as a team."

 

Bartow County nurse manager Cathy Green, RN, BSN, MPH, nominated Atkins.

 

"We had two to three bacterial meningitis cases and they were non-eventful because Melissa had informed us in advance," said Green. "This helped us to get the correct information out about the case to families and to the public. This kept our media positive and kept our messages real."

 

Atkins advised her team about the Neisseria meningitidis case, which was a diagnosis of bacterial meningitis, and responded quickly to identify the health threats and eliminate the spread of disease.

 

"We did extensive follow up with the patient and/or family to locate who needed prophylaxis or antibiotics for their exposure," Atkins said. "We immediately notified the local public health department as well as other relevant district staff of the case, the specifics around the case and any updates."

 

Atkins has also kept her colleagues abreast of world health issues and threats as far away as China regarding the bird flu outbreak.

 

"I heard about H7N9 from Melissa first and not the news," said Green. "That made all the difference in being ready to respond to the public in Georgia."

 

Students like Elizabeth Carter, a first-year MPH student at Georgia Southern's Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, also attended this year's GPHA conference.

 

"I came to the GPHA conference to network with professionals in the field [of public health] and to learn about internship opportunities in epidemiology," said Carter. "I was able to meet professionals in the field that I want to go into and to have good opportunities for my internship." 

 

Carter described her previous internships as mostly administrative and not exactly meaningful in terms of direct experience in epidemiology. She felt confident that GPHA had opened the doors for students like her to find greater networking and internship opportunities in public health in Georgia.

 

By all accounts, GPHA's annual conference brought great recognition to those who work in public health and opportunities for the multi-faceted audience who collaborated to strengthen public health, public policy and public awareness.

 

"I am very proud to work with public health," Atkins said. "I have always had a servant attitude about things. I always wanted to help others. That was one of the main reasons to go into public health. I also had an interest in medical background so I saw both of those as a perfect fit for me.  It has been true ever since and it has been very rewarding." 

 

-Story by Connie F. Smith, DPH Communications