Boots on the Ground will address the practice of public health from the perspective of those working in LHDs and will provide an informal platform for public health leaders across the country to share their stories of how public health is accomplished in real life, in real time. The series is intended to showcase the work done by LHDs and to celebrate the successes that occur every day within an LHD. Ideally, the series will provide lessons learned to advance the practice of public health and to keep LHDs at the center of health improvement efforts in their communities. In addition, the column will serve as a forum for public health practitioners to share stories of management, such as how a quality improvement initiative resulted in operational changes within the LHD.

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Dr. Cynthia Morrow is the health district director for the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts in Virginia and the co-Domain leader for Health Systems Science at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. Previously, she was the Commissioner of Health for Onondaga County, NY and the Lerner Chair for Health Promotion at Syracuse University. Her prior academic positions include Professor of Practice in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs at Syracuse University and an assistant professor with the Center for Bioethics and Humanities as well as with the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Upstate Medical University. She is a consulting editor for the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice and is also a co-editor/co-author of five books, including Essentials of Public Health, Fourth Edition (2020); Public Health: What it is and How it Works,7th Edition (2020); Bioethics, Public Health, and the Social Sciences for the Medical Professions (2019); JPHMP’s 21 Public Health Case Studies on Policy & Administration (2018); and Public Health Administration: Principles for Population-Based Management (2008). She is a graduate of Swarthmore College (BA) and Tufts University School of Medicine (MD, MPH).

Read all columns in this series:

• Moral Injury on the Frontlines in Public Health: Balancing the Needs of Our Communities and Ourselves
• Immediate Impact of Volunteers in the COVID-19 Response
• For Combating COVID-19, Collaboration Is Key
• Doing Well in Wenham: A Local Wellness Check Program During COVID
• Answering the Call: A Public Health Response to COVID-19
• Experience as a Contact Tracer: Family Ties
• How Do You Serve? Partnerships and Systems Building
• Summer of Service Learning
• Risk Communication in Trying Times: COVID-19
• Coronavirus and Local Health Departments: Where the Rubber Meets the Road
• Tulsa Health Department’s Response to Tulsa County Historic 2019 Flooding
• Summer at a Local Health Department and the Eisenhower Matrix
• Measles in New York: The Outbreak, the Response, and the Potential Unintended Consequences
• Trust: An Essential Ingredient for Becoming a Chief Health Strategist 
• Introducing Boots on the Ground: Narratives from Today’s Local Public Health Workforce