Palm Beach County, Fla. – This week is National Public Health Week and the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County would like to remind all of the many services provided that make this one of the healthiest communities in Florida.   

Each and every day, the department works to keep Palm Beach County healthy and safe by tracking, investigating, treating communicable disease and outbreaks through our epidemiology department and health clinics. The department also works daily to assure the community is prepared to respond to health emergencies, is environmentally safe through Environmental Public Health, is educated through Community Health, and our children receive a healthy start in life with a Maternal Child Nurse, immunizations or services from Women Infants and Children.  These areas and many more help the department carry out our mission to promote, protect and improve the health of Florida residents and visitors.

“We are very proud of the work our entire staff and community partners do every day for the benefit of everyone’s health,” said Dr. Alina Alonso, Director, Florida Department of Health Palm Beach County.

Palm Beach County also has a Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) that identifies and strategizes a focused plan on improving the health of the entire community. In partnership with many public and private groups these identified strategies resulted in Palm Beach County moving up to being the eighth healthiest community among the 67 counties in Florida as ranked by the Robert Wood Johnson, University of Wisconsin Annual County Health Rankings and Roadmaps.

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 county including increasing childhood vaccination rates, achieving health equity in all communities, reducing HIV infection rates, reducing infant mortality rates, and decreasing inhaled nicotine use.

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-Palm Beach please visit www.flhealthpalmbeach.org or call 561-840-4500.

About the Florida Department of Health

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