Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.edu.

That's public health question at jhh.edu for future podcast episodes.

This is Lindsay Smith Rogers.

Today, a health crisis among residents of reservations in the Great Plains region of the U.S.

Dr. Megan Curry O'Connell, Chief Public Health Officer at the Great Plains Tribal Leaders' Health Board,

and a member of the Cherokee Nation, talks with me about the alarming rise of syphilis cases

that have far outpaced even national numbers and why she and other public health

officials are struggling to respond. Let's listen. Dr. Megan Curry O'Connell, thank you so much for

being on public health on call. Would you start off by telling us a little bit about your role and your work?

Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me. I am currently

the Chief Public Health Officer for the Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board. We serve the 18

tribal communities in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. And in my role, I support

kind of all of our public health activities that may be going on in the area, including things

like public health services that we may provide to helping provide trainings and capacity building

for the tribal communities that essentially are our bosses. I work for all of them to help support

their health and public health activities. And today we're going to talk specifically about syphilis.

We know that nationwide, there has been quite a spike in syphilis, but this is really,

really evident among the people that you work with.

Could you talk a little bit about that?

Yes.

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