Until two years ago, I probably couldn’t have told you two things that my local public health agency (LPHA) did. Like most Missourians, all I knew about governmental public health was that they put letters on the windows of restaurants around town. Then, all of that changed, and to say I was surprised by what I learned would be an understatement.

 

When I started work at the Missouri Public Health Institute, after almost two decades in communications, I received the “crash course” in what was happening in governmental public health across the state. After that, I only had one question on my mind: how have I never heard these stories?

 

From Joplin to Hannibal, St. Joseph to Cape Girardeau, Kansas City to St. Louis, there are health departments making a real difference in the communities they serve. Beyond letters in windows and vaccines, LPHAs provide services ranging from maternal and child health to nutrition, counseling, environmental health, and more. The health department in the county where I live even offers services like mobile dental clinics that travel to schools to provide children with dental care.

 

But the more I learned, the more I realized that the surprising part wasn’t just how much local public health agencies were doing; it was how much of it I had taken for granted. Safe restaurants, clean water, support for new parents and children, preparing communities for emergencies, tracking and responding to disease before it spreads, connecting people with services when they need them. These are things most of us expect to simply work, and when they do, we rarely stop to think about the people and systems working behind the scenes to make that possible.

 

Maybe that is part of the challenge for governmental public health. Some of its greatest successes are the things that don’t happen. The outbreak that doesn’t spread. The child who doesn’t go without care. The restaurant meal that doesn’t make someone sick. The emergency a community is prepared to respond to. Prevention doesn’t always make for an obvious success story, but that doesn’t make it any less important. In fact, over the past two years, I’ve come to understand that much of public health is about creating the conditions that allow the rest of us to live, work, raise our families, and participate in our communities without ever having to think about the systems making those things possible.

 

I still wouldn’t call myself a public health expert. I’m a communications guy who happened to get a front-row seat to work I had overlooked for most of my life. But maybe that perspective is valuable, too. Because if someone like me could live in a community, raise a family there, eat at its restaurants, send kids to its schools, and benefit from its public health system without understanding the role it played, I’m probably not alone.

 

So, what is my takeaway as someone who knew nothing about public health two years ago? Governmental public health matters because healthy communities don’t happen by accident. Behind them are people doing work that is often quiet, often unseen, and absolutely essential. And now that I know those stories are there, I think they’re stories that are absolutely worth telling.