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This week has been both exhilarating and poignant. Almost surreal. We started the week by pausing to celebrate and reflect on the life and legacy of one of America’s greatest sons, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On Tuesday, ASTHO participated in the National Day of Healing, which provided opportunities for our staff to engage in conversations with one another, seeing one another’s humanity, as well for individual mediation, reflection and learning. On Wednesday, we were honored to witness the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris—the first woman, first Black and first Asian American person to serve in this role. This week also marked one year since we learned of the first known case of COVID-19. Despite these challenges, I am more optimistic now than ever that our collective impact and commonsense recovery response will help guide our successful return to safety and normalcy.

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) has become more prevalent in the United States, with the hospitalization rate increasing from 2.9 to 7.3 hospitalizations per 1,000 newborn births between 2009 and 2017. NAS occurs in newborns who experience withdrawal from substances they were exposed to during pregnancy. While NAS is most often associated with exposure to opioids (e.g., Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome), it can also be caused by exposure to other drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, or barbiturates. Infants with NAS experience withdrawal symptoms including tremors, irritability, poor feeding, vomiting, dehydration, and increased sweating. These symptoms usually appear within 72 hours of birth.

As the nation grapples with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, community health workers are being recognized for the role they play in improving health outcomes of our most vulnerable communities. In fact, the recently enacted American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 allocates funding for the recruitment, hiring, and training community health workers by public health departments.

One of President Biden’s first actions just before being sworn into office was to draft up the American Rescue Plan, a sweeping proposal that ASTHO has committed to working with the Biden Administration on. The proposal offers a national vaccination plan, a promise to address COVID-19 health disparities, and efforts to prioritize the expansion the public health workforce. This post details some of the high-level takeaways, as they relate to public health.

Policymakers seek to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by focusing on non-congregate sheltering and alternative housing for unhoused populations.

This Health Policy Update is an overview of policy strategies that states have taken at the executive and legislative levels to increase the healthcare workforce to more effectively and efficiently respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 has generated awareness of the importance of building community resiliency and brought about an influx of federal funding, which offers an opportunity to advance equity in prevention, social determinants of health, and healthcare.

As the response to COVID-19 transitions from response to recovery, advocacy efforts continue to intensify on Capitol Hill, to help shape negotiations on the fifth emergency supplemental package.

The statistics of who is dying from COVID-19 paint a glaring picture and highlight the ever-growing health disparities that exist in communities of color. These health disparities have become a focus area for Congress during COVID-19 response activities.

To help break the chain of COVID-19 infections, state and local health departments are conducting disease investigations and contact tracing, core tools of public health practice used to combat the spread of communicable diseases. This post is a brief review of state legislation that would impact these public health tools.

The core value of public health is social justice. Our field must do more to address the inequities in our society and confront the racism that keeps all of us from being healthy.

Important everyday health services, including declines in immunization coverage, have been negatively impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. One particularly troubling example is that coverage for childhood vaccines has gone down, leaving children under- and un-vaccinated.

The PLF was developed in close consultation with expert legal drafters and health policy experts in Pacific Island countries (including the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands), along with development partners and academic institutions. The tool was finalized in 2021, and is intended to help strengthen jurisdiction laws that regulate NCD risk factors.

This patient guide, developed by the Pittsburg County Health Department, offers information and tips for achieving lifestyle modifications to support self-management of blood pressure, including physical activity and stress.

The Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality published this one-page document with guidance on accurate blood pressure measurement and a protocol for clinicians to use with patients who have elevated blood pressure and are not currently diagnosed with hypertension.

This document features opportunities and resources for state health departments to support health systems change and the goals of several federal and national initiatives of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP), the Million Hearts® Initiative, and the CDC 6|18 Initiative.

The West Allis Health Department in Wisconsin developed this employee screening record for blood pressure measurement. It is complete and comprehensive, including check off sections and a section for comments by the evaluator with dates.

This resource, from UT Health Northeast, lays out the protocol and flowchart for the health system's hypertension program. The program includes referral to services and options for both patients that do or do not commit to the hypertension program.

This resource documents the policy and procedure of the Jasper Newton County Public Health Department's Home Blood Pressure Monitoring Program. This program, in collaboration with the Texas Department of State Health Service's Self-Measured Blood Pressure monitoring project, has the intended purpose of improving blood pressure control among patients in the county.

The Monroe Clinic in Wisconsin developed a protocol for handing off a patient with hypertension within the clinic setting for registered nurses, liscensed practical nurses, medical assistant, and certified nurses assistants. The protocol includes guidance on when, how, and why to refer patients with different blood pressure readings.