St. Lucie County, FL – This week is National Public Health Week and the Florida Department of Health in St. Lucie is giving Floridians an inside look at some of the careers behind public health and the dedicated professionals who do them. Each day, the department will highlight a different area of public health including epidemiology, emergency preparedness and response, environmental health and public health nursing. These fields and many more help the department carry out our mission to promote, protect and improve the health of Florida residents and visitors.

“We know that a strong public health system is an important part of any healthy community, but it’s probably not something that most people think about on a regular basis, because when public health works, it is undetectable,” said Clint Sperber, County Health Officer for the Florida Department of Health in St. Lucie County.

Last year, the department was the first state in the nation to receive national accreditation as an integrated department of health through the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB). Accreditation by PHAB signifies that the department, including the state health office and all 67 county health departments, is meeting national standards for ensuring essential public health services are provided in the community.

For the next two years, the department will focus on several key areas to improve health in our state including increasing childhood vaccination rates, achieving health equity in all communities, developing a high quality trauma service, reducing HIV infection rates, reducing infant mortality rates, decreasing inhaled nicotine use and decreasing licensure processing time for health care professionals.

During public health week we publish an annual overview of highlights from some of our programs. Our newspaper insert is coming this Sunday, in one of the local newspapers.

Use #ThankAPublicHealthPro on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to recognize a public health professional in your area during National Public Health Week.

For more information about National Public Health Week, please visit www.nphw.org. For more information about the different programs and services offered at DOH-St. Lucie please visit St. Lucie County Health Department Website or call 772-462-3800.