Scott: Public health field changes throughout decades

By Chris Spangler

The field of public health has changed from an individual to a societal effort during the past four decades.

And Gail Scott has experienced it firsthand.

Scott, director of the Jefferson County Health Department, spoke to the Fort Atkinson Rotary Club when members gathered Monday noon at the Fort Atkinson Club and via Zoom. She shared how her field has changed through the years.

“Public health is the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health,” Scott said. “And it is a societal effort, where we work on things such as physical and mental health, sanitation, the control of communicable diseases, emergency preparedness and response, and more.”

Scott said that in her 40-year career, she has “had to learn a whole lot about a whole lot. Every day brings on a challenge; every day, there is something new that comes up.”

She noted that public health is the intersection of healthcare, economics and social interaction.

“Fort HealthCare and the Health Department have been attached at the hip for many, many years, working together,” she noted. “We are very fortunate in that Fort HealthCare actually puts community health in the forefront of their philosophy, mission and goals. That’s kind of unusual for a healthcare complex like Fort HealthCare. That has made our working relationship just wonderful all these years.”

Scott explained that when she first started in the public health field, it focused on one-on-one individual care. She was a school nurse, did blood pressure and medication checks at senior nutrition sites, visited families with newborns and provided a lot of individual care.

“But that has morphed into the new public health, which really is systems building and looking at how we can work in the community and how we leverage the community so that we all work together toward a common goal,” Scott said.

She explained that public health impacts everything from educational achievement, safety and crime to the ability to work and be financially healthy and more.

“We know that now, especially with COVID, how it has affected all of our lives …” the health officer said.

Thanks to public health efforts, life expectancy has increased, as have sanitation, clean air and clean water, she said. Public health also works to prevent adverse childhood events and promote healthy development and healthy child-parent relationships that last a lifetime.

“Our health impacts everything,” Scott said. “We know a child can’t learn if they’re sitting in school and have a toothache, or they’re hungry or they’re tired. We know that working is a healthy thing, and it’s just critical for educational and financial well-being.”

In addition, if people are healthy, they are able to participate in recreational activities, go out to eat, attend concerts, and lead enjoyable lives.

“So we look at health as the big picture, but we know that our responsibility also is to look at diseases such as chronic and communicable diseases,” Scott said, adding that public health also is diving into health equity, looking at reducing health issues caused by differences in race, residency, social status, income and access to healthcare.

“We look at health on the global level, as well,” she continued. “We always say ‘we are one plane ride away from an outbreak,’ and boy oh boy, that came true.”

Scott said that she first started hearing about COVID-19 in December 2019. The next month, she met with some of her staff and the county’s administrator and human resource director to start assembling a plan for the response that has been underway for nearly two years.

Involving the entire community is a huge undertaking, she pointed out. 

“In Jefferson County, we are in a very, very wonderful position in that we work together,” Scott said. “During COVID, it’s been more important than ever.”

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, county public health staff targeted long-term care facilities.

“Jefferson County is home to the most long-term care facilities in a county in the state outside of Milwaukee. So we knew right away that those would be our most vulnerable populations, and we started working with them right away to try to help them mitigate the effects of COVID,” she said.

The Jefferson County Health Department also has been involved in other endeavors, from promoting walking/ bike trails, farm to table and school and accessible healthcare to working with the Community Action Coalition on seeking affordable, available housing and inspecting and licensing restaurants, hotels, pools, recreational camps and food service at schools and the county jail.

Scott shared highlights of her four-decades-long career, some interesting, other sad, but all memorable.

“One of my favorite stories is when I got a call that there was a nude pool party happening at one of our former hotels,” Scott said, noting that the hotel no longer exists. “I had to go out with the state and inspect the pool and we found that the level of disinfectant in the pool — i.e: chlorine — was so high that it would burn their skin if they went in, so we had to shut down the pool. 

“And we had about 150 very angry nude people that did not like what we had to do. I don’t think there is another health department director in the state that has had to go do that, at least not that I’ve heard of.”

The Jefferson County Health Department also responded to the 2008 flood, assisting the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management.

“Even though the flooding went on in a shorter amount of time, it was at least three or more years before we stopped responding to and assisting individuals,” Scott said. “We did well water sampling, education on food safety, mold mitigation, etc.”
And then in 2009-10, there was the H1N1 outbreak. The Health Department organized, with Fort HealthCare, clinics that gave nearly 20,000 H1N1 vaccinations that helped end the outbreak pretty quickly, relatively speaking, she said.

Scott also recalled responding to three huge fires in the county — those at a Watertown tire facility, and Fort Atkinson’s Blodgett Garden Center and, this year, the Oak Street warehouse blaze.

“In those cases, I worked with the DNR and EPA Region 5 out of Chicago to try to mitigate any air quality issues … and then to mitigate any damage to our water,” Scott said. “Those were very interesting, along with the avian influenza outbreak that affected chickens, especially in the Lake Mills area.”

During the latter, her department worked with state and federal agriculture departments to track employees at the farms to make sure the avian flu did not morph into a form that could infect humans.

“That would have been very dangerous; it would have been a novel influenza. We did do all the monitoring and thank goodness it never did get to humans,” Scott said.

Other career highlights have included being in on the ground floors of the Rock River Free Clinic and Community Dental Clinic, which now have merged into the Rock River Community Clinic; working with local medical providers and emergency responders; working on child development issues with the Greater Watertown Community Health Foundation; and heading up a group that planned for the potential of Ebola and, after 9/11, anthrax outbreaks.

And of course, then there’s the continuing response to COVID-19.

“We were not perfect in our response. It was pretty overwhelming and we tried to do the best we could,” she said of the coronavirus pandemic efforts. “I never thought I would end my career this way.”

Scott announced that she plans to retire Jan. 21, 2022.

“It’s been a great 40-year career,” she noted. “I’ve worked with some wonderful people and I thank you all for being a part of public health, because you all are.”