Nassau Health Department named best in nation

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The Nassau County Department of Health (NCDOH) has been named “Local Health Department of the Year” for 2018 by the National Association of City and County Health Officials. The NACCHO represents the nation’s nearly 3,000 local governmental health departments.

The announcement was made at the NACCHO Annual Conference on July 11.

NCDOH earned the tile by successfully bringing together providers, hospitals, and community-based organizations to evaluate the needs of residents, and together created a county-wide Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Plan. NCDOH is a founding member of the Long Island Health Collaborative, which has grown from a three-agency online database to a grant-funded health initiative with almost 100 agencies.

NCDOH was also awarded two 2018 NACCHO Model Practice awards - for early intervention and environmental health quality programs – and a Promising Practice award for its use of public health enforcement. Since 2013, the Department has won 15 Model and Promising Practice Awards, making the NCDOH the leading NACCHO award winner of all local health departments in New York State.

“Every one of these awards represents a service or innovation that NCDOH provides to our residents,” said Dr. Lawrence Eisenstein, Commissioner of Nassau County Department of Health. “While the awards are special, the professional, highest caliber daily work done by the staff at NCDOH to keep us among the healthiest counties in the nation is what I am most proud of.”

In recent years, the County Health Department has created initiatives such as an Office of Minority Health Affairs, participation in the “Cribs for Kids” program, programs that screen infants for developmental delays, sending “Newborn Welcome Mailings” with pertinent newborn health information to the families of all 14,000 babies born in the county each year and serving as the grantee for the Long Island Ryan White HIV Service grant.

The Department regularly oversees disease investigation and control measures and environmental inspections and education, ensuring that food is safe to eat, water is safe to drink, and health risks are limited at camps, pools, gas stations, fairs, beaches, tattoo parlors, and in new residential dwellings. The Department’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness unit leads a troop of almost 1,000 volunteer medical professionals in a Medical Reserve Corps who train for emergencies and provide on-site medical coverage for the Games for the Physically Challenged and the Long Island Marathon.