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Building Healthy, Equitable Communities
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Staff Perspectives

Overview

Monthly Staff Perspective

Each month, Get Healthy San Mateo County staff offer their perspective on a public health issue featured in our monthly newsletters. 

Staff Perspective Mai Le

Continuing to Collaborate for Children’s Success

Hello! My name is Mai (pronounced like “my”) and I am so happy to introduce myself as a new Community Health Planner with San Mateo County Health Policy and Planning (HPP). I’ll be working to move the Community Collaboration for Children’s Success (CCCS) forward and support our civic empowerment and health initiatives.

Staff Perspective Melissa Ibarra

Ensuring a Safe Return to Schools for All

Hello Get Healthy San Mateo readers! 

My name is Melissa, and I’m excited to join Health Policy and Planning as a Community Health Planner for the next year. I lead the Safe Return to Schools for All initiative, which aims to enhance the partnership between San Mateo County Health and the San Mateo Office of Education to ensure a safe return to schools for all students and school communities. I will also serve as the School Liaison between the community and San Mateo County Health.  

Staff Perspective Shireen Malekafzali

A Year of Change

The start of a new decade hit us with a pandemic that no one saw coming. An abrupt economic crisis followed, along with anxiety, isolation, and uncertainty. The pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the existing inequities within our county and country. To say that it’s been a challenge is an understatement. Families have lost so much – from loved ones, to jobs, financial security, and their normal family and community connections.

Staff Perspective Brian Oh

My Final Post with Deep Gratitude

Greetings, GHSMC partners! I write my final post with deep gratitude and optimism during one of the more challenging years in recent memory. As I wrap up my transition this month working for the County of San Mateo, I am encouraged by all the great health equity work that I was fortunate to be a part of during my three years with the Health Policy and Planning team.  We were able to advance policy efforts such as Daly City being the first city in the county to adopt a Vision Zero Action Plan to eliminate traffic deaths, which disproportionately affect our most vulnerable communities.

Staff Perspective Shireen Malekafzali

Forging Ahead with a Stronger Framework

Dear Get Healthy SMC,

It’s hard to imagine that we are in the home stretch of our 2015-2020 Get Healthy SMC Strategic Plan. Five years ago, you told us that being healthy wasn’t just about getting to the gym, having vegetables with lunch, and cutting out soda for kids. You shared your experiences and those of your families and communities that demonstrated that we can’t be healthy in isolation – we need healthy, equitable communities for all.

Staff Perspective Justin Watkins Grace Streltzov

Local Produce Promotes Health, Economic Well-Being and Sustainable Agriculture

Justin and Grace here combining forces to talk about anchor strategies, which is a framework for building health and wealth in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods. Across the country, hospitals and health systems are using their economic power to improve community well-being. These large place-based enterprises, also known as “anchor institutions”, are using their resources to create economic opportunities for excluded and low-income residents through inclusive workforce programs, equitable procurement policies, sustainability efforts and mission-aligned investments.

Staff Perspective Grace Streltzov

Improving Health through Equitable Fee Policies

Dear Get Healthy SMC Partners,

One of my favorite things about this job is the chance to learn about issues impacting our most vulnerable in our County and ways we can advance health equity by building financial security for all people. One issue we’ve been researching recently is the impact local fines and fees can have on residents’ ability to grow their assets and savings.

Staff Perspective Maeve Johnston

That’s a Wrap: Lessons from the Community Collaborative for Children’s Success Planning Process

Over the last year and a half, four communities in San Mateo County have been hard at work looking for solutions to overcome barriers to youth success. Despite busy schedules and competing priorities, over 1,000 community members showed their investment in young people’s futures by taking surveys, attending night meetings, knocking on doors, talking to neighbors and digging deep with their communities to come together around top priorities.

Staff Perspective Belén Seara

A Path to Resilient Homes

Greetings Get Healthy SMC Partners,

Last year, the Built Environment Committee (BEC) of BARHII, which is the Bay Area coalition of public health departments, has been exploring the intersection of habitability and community resiliency. Environmental factors such as extended heat waves and severe weather caused by climate change exposes those who reside in substandard households to higher health risks such as heat-related illnesses or death.

Staff Perspective Maeve Johnston

Youth Speak! Amplifying Voices from the Community Collaboration for Children’s Success

“Family therapy brought me closer to my dad,” says an incarcerated youth at San Mateo County’s Youth Services Center. “I was never as close to my dad as I am now.” We’re discussing what would have made a difference for him—the supports and barriers along his path, which for most of the last two years has taken him in and out of this detention facility. Access to family therapy and a supportive parole officer has been stabilizing since he has been incarcerated, and he pauses to consider the earlier supports that could have made a difference.

Staff Perspective Heather Eastwood

Voting is Good for Health!

While voting may not seem like a public health issue, research shows a correlation between voter turnout and positive health outcomes. This means that places with higher rates of voters also have higher rates of positive health outcomes, such as overall improved mental and physical health [1].  Alternatively, places with low voter turnout have higher rates of poor self-reported health, and research shows that there is a connection between reported and actual health outcomes [2].

Staff Perspective Brian Oh

Get Us Moving, San Mateo!

Every Autumn when school is back in session, I find myself reminiscing about my own childhood. My brother and I walked everywhere, then when we were old enough we rode our bikes all over town. We knew our neighbors and I delivered the local paper to my neighbors on my way to school. I grew up in a leafy suburb in Los Angeles, lived ten blocks from school and my parents never worked more than 20 minutes away. This is not a typical experience in present day California.