This transcript contains multiple speakers from the Detroit Health Department. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

About the Detroit Health Department

Christina Floyd: My name is Christina Floyd, and I am the Deputy Director of Public Health for the Detroit Health Department, under the leadership of our chief public health officer, Denise Fair Razo. The overarching mission of the Detroit Health Department is to address population health and public priorities, because we truly envision a community where everybody has an opportunity to thrive.

How have you been able to use PHIG funding?

Floyd: At the Detroit Health Department, we’ll provide a quick overview of how our public health infrastructure dollars are working within the community. For example, ensuring that we have robust community input from our community advisory board that we’ve newly minted after years of being dormant. We are also going to see how we increased our ability to build our organizational capabilities, in providing resources for policymaking, our procedures, but overall, being able to provide better services through the lens of standardization within the department. And finally, we’ll discuss how we’re able to showcase and highlight the wonderful data that we’re providing to the community so that they, in turn, can make sound decisions, with data of integrity and accuracy.

With these funding dollars, we’ve been able to not only grow our staff, but allow them to be able to branch out and be more noticeable in the community. The other piece of that is being able to go out of the four walls of the health department and provide services that we normally would either have to do in-house or through our community health workers. And so being able to really drive public health into the community and being more community-driven has been a great role that the funding has allowed us to do.

What’s been the impact of Community Health Workers?

Floyd: In the middle part of February 2025, there was a huge water main break of one of the major ground resources within the southwest area of the city of Detroit. It spanned over 400 housing units within that area, and it blanketed, in subzero weather during that time, the area with sheets of ice and water. And so over 400 homes were unsafe at that time for residents both old, young, and many non-English speaking residents.

Our community health workers, along with our nursing staff, were instrumental in going to the various housing situations where we had those who were displaced from this critical, almost month-long emergency. They provided assistance with regards to residents needing medical services, food, other referral services. In conjunction with our housing department, they were able to ensure that there were safe spaces for people to go, and connected them to mental health services if they needed them.

They were a trusted source of help throughout that entire time, from the beginning to the end. They also manned our mobile unit that was there for at least three weeks of the emergency. Our community health workers were really instrumental in being a trusted resource for those who were displaced at that time.

Tell us about the community advisory board.

Feyi Waya: Hi, my name is Feyi Waya, and I’m the Public Health Infrastructure Grant Program Evaluator.

The Community Advisory Board is very important because it will help us to bridge the gap between the community and the Detroit Health Department. Through the PHIG funds, we have been able to reestablish an 11-member Community Advisory Board for the Detroit Health Department.

Who sits on the advisory board?

Waya: We have an 11-member Community Advisory Board that spans the ages of 17 to 71. We have high schoolers, we have doulas, as we have a chef, we have a pastor, we have a scientist – we have a diverse range of people to bring in their wealth of wisdom and represent their districts. We have seven districts in Detroit, and we have at least one representative from each of the districts.

What are you hoping to accomplish?

Waya: One of the key things that we’re hoping to do with the Community Advisory Board for the Detroit Health department is that each of the programs within our department that will be coming to present what they do, as well as to get insight from the Community Advisory Board about what they should be doing, what they’re doing now, and what they’re not doing well. So that is what we hope to be able to get more information about it: finding the right thing that meets the community’s needs and concerns.

Another thing that’s unique to our Community Advisory Board is that they’re not just there to advise and support. We are also planning to empower them. We have conducted some surveys with them to see: what are those skills that you can bring on board? What are those skills that you think you need? So we’re hoping to empower them to build their capacity, in that they will also be able to knowledge-transfer within themselves and we will be able to help them. For example, they’ll practice public speaking, gain knowledge about what public health is, and learn about things that can help them to be more of the voice for us in the community.

Why is this work so important?

Waya: They are our voices in the community. There are our eyes in the community. They’re there to advise, to support, to also tell us about – for example – the communication team, when they’re bringing out their fliers and posters, they will be able to tell us: Does it speak to the community? Is it relevant? Are we speaking their language? Is this how we should be putting out the information, the fliers, the posters, the advertisements that we are putting out in that community? So those are the kind of things that they will help us to do, and that’s why they are very important for us.

How have you used PHIG funding internally?

Mohamad Ali: Hello. My name is Mohamad Ali. I’m the Public Health Policy Analyst at the Detroit Health Department. As we all know, strong policies are the backbone of a public health department: they ensure compliance with city ordinances or public health regulations at all levels, and also ensure that we provide consistent and effective services to our community.

Before the Public Health Infrastructure Grant, our policy development process was fragmented. Policies were laid down in different orders, different review cycles, and it was hard to even locate them in one format. After PHIG funding, we were able to structure our process and come up with two goals: by the end of 2025, we wanted to standardize all our processes, so we’re talking policies, procedures, and guidelines that actually structure this work. Our second goal is to actually centralize them in one location so that our staff are able to locate them – basically, for our workforce to be able to locate them whenever they need to.

What are the outcomes?

Ali: What we developed is a guide of definitions that shows a healthy workplace. Our policies now are aligned with CLAS and ADA standards, and they also reflect Michigan’s “Health In All Policies” approach, which is the approach we are following.

We are able now to say that we have completed around 85% of our standardization process, and that translates to around 250 policies, procedures, and guidelines that support our staff while doing their job. So again, it’s an overall, unified framework that supports and centralizes all our work.

Why is this work so important?

Ali: Policy development is not just paperwork. It’s about how we modernize our processes and how we’re able to translate this vision that we have, and values, into action. That’s the importance of having a structured framework and having all your documentation provided in a structured and unified manner.

As I always said to my colleagues and coworkers, and I repeat: this work is not a one-man job or accomplishment. It’s the cumulative work of all our division leaders and workforce to be able to unite under this mission and serve our community better.

Tell us about your data modernization efforts.

Oluchi Uju-Eke: Hi. I’m Oluchi Uju-Eke, Data Modernization Manager at the City of Detroit Health Department. Prior to PHIG, a lot of our data was fragmented and existed in silos, and we also lacked some structure and governance around how we manage our data.

Since PHIG, we have been able to take a closer look at our data. We started by conducting a departmental data assessment where we were able to get more specific about where our data exists, how it moves through the system, and what we’re doing with our data. With that information, we were able to build workflow maps for our divisions in our department. We were able to get a complete look at our data throughout its life cycle. So, from when we first collect it, how we manage it throughout the system, and then how we share it with the public.

What is a data flow map, and what does it do?

Uju-Eke: A data flow map is a snapshot of a division’s data processes and lifecycle from beginning to end, so where they collect their data from, who their target population is, how the data is managed, how the data is stored, and how the data is shared. It’s a picture of how the data moves throughout the department.

Why is this work so important?

Uju-Eke: By making our data more visible, we are able to identify problems earlier, offer more targeted interventions, and increase collaboration throughout our department and in the community. Moving forward, our data flow maps will help us guide our future data modernization efforts.

How are you strengthening the public health workforce?

Alescia Farr: Hello, my name is Alescia Farr, and I am the Workforce Development Director at the Detroit Health Department. With the funding through the Public Health Infrastructure Grant, we were able to – for the first time in, I want to say, the department’s history – create a workforce development plan. And that robust plan shows our investment in our staff and in the larger Detroit community because it provides resources, funding, and just allows staff to feel supported in doing the work that they do every day, while building additional skills and resources to be able to do their jobs even better.

Our mission is to address the public and population health priorities of Detroiters. Through this plan, we’ve been able to listen to the voice of our staff so that we know what they need – and that’s on the retention side of things. We’re also focused on recruitment. Without these funds, we would not be able to reach out to the future generation of public health workers through some of our initiatives, like a summer camp that we launched, or the internship experience program that we’re launching and working on. But we’re still focusing on our retention, which is the staff that we have: how do we build qualified, strong public health workers for today, tomorrow, and, you know, everywhere?

Tell us about the public health explorers camp.

Farr: “Public Health Explorers,” that is the name of the summer camp that we hosted this past summer. We were able to engage 12 children, ages 7-18. We engaged them for a week-long summer camp where they were introduced to public health, including some of the required and mandated services that are offered at the Detroit Health Department, and they got live, hands-on experience of what it looks like to work in public health. It’s providing youth, children, people who don’t have any knowledge of public health, with that inkling of “this is what like public health looks like – it’s cool! Come work with us and make a difference for your community.”

What’s been the impact?

Farr: This was a great experience. One, it introduced these youth to public health. Two, it provided some of our current staff with opportunities to teach young adults about public health, something that they don’t do on a day-to-day basis. They work with adults and their clients, but to be able to tailor the messaging and the health communication to a population that’s outside of who they normally talk to? That was a development opportunity for our workforce. And so not only were we able to tap into the recruitment side of things, we were able to tap into the retention side of things and do great work.

We were able to see that 100% of the students who participated in the camp reported being aware of public health programs and services offered at our health department. We also saw a 43% increase in the number of students who felt that working in public health was “cool,” and said they would work at the Detroit Health Department. Those little nuggets are critical for advancing public health, the work that we’re doing, and developing the next generation of public health workers.

Why is this work so important?

Farr: Investing in our workforce and in the next generation is really an investment in the community. Being able to put money into helping people do their jobs better, helping people know that public health is out there, is going to ultimately reduce the number of people who are choosing sugar-sweetened beverages instead of water, or not going to see a primary care physician or even our public health nurses to get the vaccinations, or get whatever it is that they need in order to have a quality of life that really helps them to thrive.

At the Detroit Health Department, our vision is to build healthy communities where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. What PHIG is doing for us is allowing us to see that in action, every day, by how we engage and invest. It’s more than just money. It’s investment in support, and investment in “I’m here for you, you can come and talk to me.” It’s an investment in adding additional resources to the community, to our schools, to our university partners. It’s more than just, “We have this money for this five years.” It’s about building foundational systems and structures for the future.