Heroes Inspire
Every day, public health professionals are working in the gaps-between healthy and harmed, between root causes and crises. They remain relentlessly focused on closing the distance between the communities they serve and the vibrant futures they hope to build. It's not easy but dedicated public health practitioners are standing tall and finding success.
They're working together to help prevent devastating health challenges such as suicide, overdoses, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) before they happen. Explore their stories to get inspired and leverage what they've learned in your own community.
A Whole Community Approach
Right now, public health programs are making a difference. They're working toward ambitious jurisdiction-wide goals with an innovative, two-part approach. It starts with building a whole public health community by encouraging interagency and public-plus-private collaborations that bring together new perspectives and skill sets in pursuit of common goals.
Investing in primary prevention efforts can help whole communities prevent trauma and its consequences by improving the conditions in which people live, work, and grow. Explore the success stories below to see how communities are harnessing this innovative approach to create lasting change.
See the Progress, Place by Place
Finding Common Ground
Collaborating on ACEs and Infographics
Partnership has helped Florida's public health professionals uncover and address community needs. One result? Plans for a new educational infographic designed to help young people around the state understand ACEs and seek support.
Four more years, millions of lives made better. Take a close look at Florida's plan for a healthier, safer state.
Explore Florida's Five-Year Plan
"The Florida Department of Health and its partners can strengthen our state's infrastructure and prevention capacibilities and expand Florida's system of care. This includes addressing the risk and protective factors that impact other public health challenges."
- Florida Department of Health Violence and Injury Prevention Section Staff, a Centers for Disease Control Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Grant recipient.
For Florida public health professionals, preventing suicide, overdose, and ACEs means ensuring community leaders and state officials recognize them as critical state health issues. The team leveraged the inclusion of these issues in the state's most recent health improvement plan to identify new strategic partners and reach shared goals together.
For the first time, mitigating ACEs has become a statewide strategy for preventing childhood and adjust injuries, promoting safety, and reducing violence..
Over the next four years, nearly 60 state and community partners will work steadily towards making the ambitious goals outlined in Florida's latest state health improvement plan a reality.
Making the Connection
A young father grappling with thoughts of suicide. A mother searching for help to manage her substance use safely. A child suffering abuse and neglect in silence. To many, these health challenges may seem as isolated from each other as the lives they affect. But public health workers know that suicide, overdose, and ACEs are connected-by shared risk and protective factors, and by the root causes of trauma. Helping individuals and families live happy, healthy lives means implementing new an innovative programs that address these issues holistically.
Working together, state, territorial, and freely associated state health agencies can play a crucial role in advancing prevention at the intersection of suicide, overdose, and ACEs by addressing root causes, connecting community needs, and reducing stigma and health disparities.
"When we put families at the center of our shared work, we can do amazing things that transcend silos and turf. The more teams work together and innovate, the better our solutions will be."
- Michael Fraser, PhD, MS, CAE, FCPP, ASTHO Chief Executive Officer
Explore More Ways to Close the Distance
Share Your Story
Your work truly makes a positive impact, and we want to hear about it. Share your story and become a source of inspiration for public health professionals striving to make a difference.
Additional Florida Resources
Suicide Prevention | Florida Department of Health
Overdose Data to Action | Florida Department of Health
Adverse Childhood Experiences in FL Adults | Florida Department of Health
Additional Puerto Rico Resources
Suicide Prevention | Government of Puerto Rico
Suicide Prevention Commission Staff Directory | Government of Puerto Rico
This project was made possible by the OT18-1802 Cooperative Agreement, award #6 NU38OT000290-04-01 from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the CDC.