Strong Leaders Build Resilient Communities: How USVI Is Training Crisis-Ready Public Health Leaders
Success StoriesPublic health leaders are often the first line of response when a crisis hits, whether that’s a hurricane, a pandemic, or another emergency that puts pressure on already-stretched systems. The Region II Public Health Training Center, housed at Columbia University, works to make sure those leaders have what they need to take action, providing workforce development, technical assistance, and training across New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. In St. Thomas, that meant bringing ALTC — Advancing Leadership in Times of Crisis — to a group of public health leaders, supported by the Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG).
Gabrielle Bailey, Health Policy Director at the Region II Public Health Training Center, explains how the eight-week program, adapted from a successful Puerto Rico model launched in 2015, covered public health law, adaptive leadership, health communication and advocacy, project management, and more. The six graduates in this first cohort spanned clinical and community health backgrounds, bringing together staff from across multiple divisions and levels of leadership of the USVI Department of Health.
As technology, climate risks, and public health needs continue to evolve, having trained, prepared leaders on the ground makes the difference in how communities prepare, respond, and recover. Programs like ALTC equip leaders with tools and skills to maximize the resources they have to minimize harm from any public health crisis.
Video Transcript
The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
What does the Region II Public Health Training Center do?
The Region II Public Health Training Center is housed within Columbia University, and we exist to improve workforce development and provide technical assistance, student internships, and programs in the public health sector. So we exist, essentially, to ensure that the public health workforce is strong in this country and throughout our region. New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands are the states and territories that we oversee within our region.
How are you supporting PHIG recipients?
The training program that we brought to the USVI was called ALTC, Advancing Leadership in Times of Crisis. This was a program that originated in Puerto Rico in 2015, and it was really successful in Puerto Rico. Historically, the US Virgin Islands has been left out of a lot of the funding opportunities and program development within Region 2. We do a lot of great work in New York, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico, but we wanted to bring this program to the Virgin Islands and have this pilot launch there because it was so successful in Puerto Rico. We were able to reference that success and bring it to St. Thomas for the first time this year.
What kind of training does this program offer?
When we piloted it in St. Thomas, the ALTC program was an eight-week program. We went through six different courses: those courses focused on public health law, adaptive leadership, health communication and advocacy, project management, and more. We wanted to really ensure that we were giving public health leaders the tools that they need to navigate challenges and crises that might come up. So whether that’s environmental emergencies, such as hurricanes or pandemics, such as COVID-19, we wanted to show leaders how to best respond to these crises and how they can provide the resources that are needed to their communities.
We launched in St. Thomas in May of 2025, and we had a total of six graduates in this first cohort, which might seem small, but for a pilot launch, it was actually just what we were hoping for. These six people come from different levels of leadership within the USVI Department of Health. Some of them had clinical backgrounds – we had a nurse practitioner, for example – and we had some people who were in community health work, and other individuals coming from various divisions within the health department.
Why is this work so important?
This program is really critical. It’s important because it helps strengthen workforce development for public health leaders in the Virgin Islands, which is essential, and it’s essential throughout the regions that we oversee. But more specifically, we want to give leaders the tools they need to adequately respond to public health crises. Times are changing, we have different technological advancements, and we want to ensure that our public health leaders are prepared and are ready to respond to some of these challenges that are definitely going to arise in the future.
Why is this investment so important?
This grant is essential because it allows us to strengthen the public health workforce. I think when you have a strong public health workforce, you ultimately create healthier and happier communities. We can do that by ensuring that staff and public health leaders have the tools they need to show up to work and do their best on a daily basis, and to ensure they’ve been trained, they have professional development opportunities, and they can stay up to date with the changing ecosystem of public health.