Welcome everyone to the um service delivery committee.

I'm Councilmember Tarsha Jackson.

Um I am the chair, and I would like to welcome our vice chair, Mr.

Ramirez.

Councilmember Ramirez, thank you for being here.

Um this meeting is being held in a hybrid mode in person and virtually, and it is open to the public.

The chair is the presiding officer of the committee, and is pretty committee meeting is pre um presented in the chambers according to the provisions of section 551.127 of the Texas government code applicable to the government body that extends into three or more counties.

All of the committee members have the option to participate in person in person or virtually via Microsoft.

And today we will hear presentations from our very own director of the health department on Director Chan.

And Director Chan will share with us just an overview of what the health department does and how they serve our um wonderful city, the city of Houston.

Um we have one person signed up to speak.

If you wanted to speak, you had to sign up by 5 p.m.

If you didn't get the opportunity to sign up, um we have a sign-in sheet that you can um sign up.

So with that being said, we're gonna um have our director come on up and um share the good news of the health department.

It has been an honor, you know, since I've been here on um council working with the health department on various projects.

You guys have been a you know, just the champion on moving our um programs, projects um forward, um, like the Be Successful Initiative and you know, working with our nonprofit organizations to build um to support them and the work that they're doing within our communities.

And so um, this is an opportunity to learn what the health department do.

Everybody, you know, we know you here, but you know, you do a lot of um great things for the city, and so um the table is yours.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Jackson.

Um first off, thank you for inviting me here and for caring to share what the health department does.

Um, this is a little bit of a test for myself because in the nine months that I've been here, I've gotten to learn what we do, and so I'm still learning.

I'm not done with all of my deep dives yet.

I have um one division to go where I'm diving deep into like this morning.

I spent with our WIC program.

I'll be spending it with our triple A program and Incredible Messengers and you know, just a few other programs, but I'll be done certainly within the next couple of months.

Um so how do I ask for the slides to be advanced here?

Just next.

Okay.

All right.

So um just for your awareness, this is the presentation that we put together for new council member orientation.

So it was updated for council member Salinas, and um this actually was a great opportunity for us to just share with everybody to get us back up onto the same page as to what the health department offers now.

Um we are a full service health department.

There are uh 1,222 employees.

Uh last year our operating budget was 179.5 million dollars, of which I'll show you what the grant funding allocation and the general fund was.

Um but really what we do as a health department is truly work within the community to promote health.

And I'm gonna get into public health a little bit more because even as the um assistant dean of a school of public health, I didn't realize what we were doing at the health department in public health, which is could be different depending on uh what city you're looking at.

But we are truly full service.

We provide the um services that a large public health department is supposed to provide, which is fitting because we are the first local health department in the state of Texas, and we um are the largest health department in Texas and one of the largest in the nation.

We are also the second largest department in the U.S.

to achieve public health accreditation.

Um the next slide.

Let's see.

So, of course, you already know this.

We serve all of the residents in Houston, but there are services and Leah and I spoke with the budget committee about how Harris County Public Health and Houston Health Department have services that some of them we provide, some of them they provide for the entire county.

Um, among the services that we provide countywide include our area agency on aging, some of our immunization strategies, and then um our some of the direct funding that we're able to get federally for HIV and STD surveillance.

Uh we do the surveillance for the entire county.

And also 17 surrounding counties, including 17 surrounding counties.

Next slide.

Okay, so what is public health?

This is the definition that you'll see in textbooks, and that you probably know.

You know, we prevent illness, we promote health and wellness, and we try to protect the community from outbreaks and diseases.

The next slide.

And resource allocation for public health has to recognize that the two go hand in hand, and they're not just a mere overlap on a Venn diagram, but they are all encompassing.

And so that is the virtue that we're taking forward into the future at the Houston Health Department, that we encompass an umbrella of everything.

It doesn't mean that we become, you know, a primary care clinic or a medical home, but it is just as much our responsibility to get people connected to that as it is a health care delivery system's responsibility to connect back to us.

Okay, next slide.

So as we go into the legislative session and talks with DSHS and looking at funding mechanisms for the next year, it is important to define what we consider local core services, core local public health services.

And so the um TACA, which is the Texas Association of County and City Health officials, has come up with some talking points that we that align with what health departments are doing.

Not every health department, like you know, in a tiny county, um, well, first off, tiny counties may not even have a health department, but um tiny other cities may not do everything.