Macomb County Health Department honored for excellence in public health

Youth Emergency Preparedness Program one of 53 programs in the country to receive Model Practice Award

The Macomb County Health Department (MCHD) was honored with the Model Practice Award at the 2019 Annual Conference of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). The award celebrates local health departments for developing programs that demonstrate exemplary and replicable best practices in response to a critical local public health needs. The Youth Emergency Preparedness Training Program was one of 53 local health department programs to receive NACCHO’s prestigious Model Practice Award.

The Youth Preparedness Program is an outreach and education initiative that targets Macomb County fifth graders. The MCHD utilizes MCHD Medical Reserve Corps (MCHD MRC) volunteers as presenters. Interested schools schedule a presentation and on event day, an MCHD MRC volunteer arrives at the school to present the following:

• An emergency preparedness survey
• Common emergencies
• Common ways emergencies are prevented
• Creating an emergency plan packet
• Demonstration of emergency kit assembly

Two weeks after each presentation, the students take the survey again and receive a classroom certificate of completion from the program.

Since 2003, NACCHO’s Model Practice Awards have honored programs, resources and tools that demonstrate how local health departments and their community partners can effectively collaborate to address local public health challenges. Each innovative project receiving the Model Practice Award is peer-reviewed and selected from a competitive group of over 100 applicants.

“We are proud to recognize local health departments who have excelled and developed innovative public health projects that are making local communities healthier and more secure,” said NACCHO’s Chief Executive Officer Lori Tremmel Freeman. “The 2019 Model Practice Awards are a showcase of the best and brightest in local public health.”

Images of the MCHD award recipients are available here.

Photo 1: (left to right) - April DeWeese; Jane Parayil; Shannon Tanniru; Elizabeth Hacker (all MCHD Emergency Preparedness Staff) and Andrew Cox, MCHD Environmental Health Division Director

Photo 2: (left to right) - Laura Tremmel Freeman, CEO NACCHO; Andrew Cox, director, MCHD Environmental Health Division; William Ridella, director, MCHD; Natalie Dean-Wood, director, MCHD Community Health Planning and Promotion Division; George Roberts, president, NACCHO and director, Northeast Texas Public Health District.