As part of National Public Health Week 2022, CSTE is highlighting the work of our members in different areas of applied epidemiology. Today’s focus is on recent CSTE Fellow Hannah Collins.

As a public health epidemiologist in Seattle, Hannah Collins had a unique, front row view of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Ms. Collins dealt with the stress of those uncertain months in Spring 2020 like many Americans did.

She adopted a “pandemic puppy” – a labradoodle named Coco.

As this National Public Health Week continues with today’s theme of “Public Health Workforce: Essential to our Future,” Ms. Collins’ story encapsulates the next generation of young epidemiologists at the forefront of their field.

Hannah’s journey to applied epidemiology began after college. She worked on a program evaluation to understand the impact of a community-based parenting program and how it could be implemented in Head Start Preschools.

“I became really invested in how to make data more accessible to communities,” she said.

Ms. Collins then earned her master’s degree in at the University of California – Berkeley’s School of Public Health in Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health. While working during a summer internship at the Ohio Department of Health, she learned about the CSTE Applied Epidemiology Fellowship (AEF) program, submitted an application and was accepted.

She is now completing CSTE’s AEF and working as an Epidemiologist II at Public Health – Seattle & King County in Washington State. In both her fellowship and current job, Ms. Collins has worked in three different areas: Overdose and Substance Use Surveillance, Injury and Violence Prevention and Climate Change Impacts.

Recently, she’s been evaluating an algorithm to help identify opioid overdoses in emergency medical services data to improve overdose surveillance, detect clusters, and form outreach programs.  One of those outreach programs included some tech-savvy techniques.

“Over the past year, I’ve worked on a pilot program that texts people who have survived an overdose to see if we can connect them to a range of services or if there is any support we can provide for them,” she said.

Ms. Collins’ day-to-day activities vary depending on the most pressing issue. She updates data on King County’s public health dashboards, collaborates with partners at Emergency Medical Services and the Medical Examiner’s Office, as well as Washington State’s syndromic surveillance program (Rapid Health Information Network). Her time is also spent writing and thinking about how best to communicate the most recent data to the public.

Her work in Injury and Violence Prevention has recently included a CDC-funded evaluation of the social economic and overall health impacts of COVID 19 and associated mitigation strategies.

“We’ve been monitoring things like unemployment, family violence, behavioral health data, traffic patterns and several other topics,” she said.

In addition to the general population dealing with the stresses of a major pandemic, Ms. Collins acknowledges that she and her fellow public health workers who were thrust into an ‘all hands-on deck at all times’ situation has taken its toll. However, the staff camaraderie and setting some much needed personal boundaries has helped.

“People continue to get burned out and there’s no quick, easy fix,” she said.

Despite the challenges of the last two years, Hannah is proud of her work and her team’s accomplishments. Particularly their capacity to modify and shift when a strategy or plan wasn’t working.

“I’m most proud of our ability to adapt and be innovative,” she said. “For example, if we’ve tried something that’s not getting a lot of response, we adapted and made very quick changes in real time.”

Ms. Collins referred to CSTE’s AEF program as an important bridge between her education and career and credits her mentors for helping to shape her views on applied epidemiology.

“The two epidemiologists who were my mentors for this program helped me realize the possibilities of epidemiological data at the local level to make change,” she said. “They were very influential.”

What does the future hold for Hannah Collins? She’s excited to continue working as an epidemiologist in King County and advance the use of data to improve the health of those in her area. And given that she was born and raised in Seattle & King County, having a personal connection to her work.

“I’m grateful to work in the community I grew up in,” she said. “I’m excited to have the chance to make an impact here.”

Hannah’s story represents countless young professionals working in public health today: Strong community ties, and an emphasis on updating the decades old data and technology structures in their jurisdictions. This next generation of applied epidemiologists will certainly face more obstacles and personal hardships. Supplying them with the empathy and support they need is crucial to keeping all of us healthy.

And for Hannah, when times get tough, she can always take a long stress-relieving walk with Coco.

Hannah Collins, MPH is an Epidemiologist II at Public Health – Seattle & King County. Hannah recently completed CSTE’s Applied Epidemiology Fellowship (AEF) and will graduate in Class XVIII.