HJAR May/Jun 2023

PUBLIC HEALTH AND MEDICINE Dianne Hartley, Editor ank you for your time. Arkansas has low healthcare rank- ings compared to the rest of the country. How can CDC help states like Arkansas to raise its ranks? Houry What I’d say with Arkansas is really monitoring vaccinations, making sure everybody who’s eligible for vaccination is up-to-date on their vaccinations. It’s really important. Not many people are getting state will go to local health communities. Editor Violence is on the rise. Do you believe discussing violence as a disease, and a contagious one at that, will advance the eradication by putting it more clearly in the crosshairs of medicine and the pub- lic health communities? Houry I think when we want to talk about violence prevention, there are so many Debra Houry, MD, MPH Chief Medical O cer and Deputy Director for Program and Science Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the up-to-date COVID vaccine overall in the nation. It’s only about 16% that are up-to-date. If you haven’t had that, really important to do it, particularly if you have any immuno-compromising conditions or you’re an older adult. Also, through the pub- lic health infrastructure funding, we are able to support workforce in Arkansas through the health departments and this will really allow for more local support as well. About 30 to 40% of all of the funding from each ONE ON ONE 22 MAY / JUN 2023 I HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS Debra Houry, MD, MPH, is the chief medical o cer and deputy director for Program and Science at CDC. Most recently, she served as CDC’s acting principal deputy director, and prior to that, Houry served for over seven years as the director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Houry previously served as an associate professor at Emory University and emergency physician at Grady Memorial Hospital. She received MD and MPH degrees from Tulane University and completed residency training in emergency medicine at Denver Health Medical Center in Colorado.