888 - A Conversation With Alabama’s State Health Officer
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.8 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About this episode:
Dr. Scott Harris has worked as a leader in Alabama’s public health department for eight years and recently became that national president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. In this episode: A conversation with Dr. Harris about lessons learned from the pandemic and how the current moment is presenting new challenges with measles outbreaks and plenty of unknowns. He also talks about keeping his staff motivated and on task to meet their bottom line: protecting the health and safety of Alabamians.
Guest:
Dr. Scott Harris is the State Health Officer of the Alabama Department of Public Health and the President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
Host:
Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a faculty member in health policy, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland’s Health Department.
Show links and related content:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhh.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:30.9 | It's Lindsay Smith Rogers. |
| 0:33.2 | Dr. Scott Harris is the Alabama State Health Officer, a position he's held for the last eight years. |
| 0:39.9 | He's also the national president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. |
| 0:45.5 | He joins Dr. Josh Sharfstein to talk about his experiences in public health, the challenges of the present moment, and his plan for the possible arrival of measles. |
| 0:55.0 | Let's listen. |
| 0:57.0 | Dr. Scott Harris, thank you so much for joining me today on Public Health on call. |
| 1:01.0 | How are you doing today? |
| 1:03.0 | Thanks for having me, Josh. I'm doing well. Thank you. Just glad to be with you. |
| 1:07.0 | So I'd like to start by asking to introduce yourself to our audience. You are the Health Commissioner for the State of Alabama. |
| 1:13.6 | That's right. |
| 1:14.6 | I'm a physician. |
| 1:15.6 | I'm an adult infectious disease, doc by training, and I came to public health only about 10 years |
| 1:21.6 | ago, which for most of my career, I was an HIV doc. |
| 1:25.6 | I was practicing here in Alabama, but did a lot of work with local public health and eventually found a position as a local health officer in the part of the state where I was living. And now I've been in this role running the department of field for about eight years. |
| 1:39.7 | Well, that's a long time for a public health officer. and that's a big transition from clinical care into public health. |
| 1:46.1 | Tell me what drove you to change jobs. |
| 1:50.0 | I really enjoyed my clinical work. |
| 1:52.7 | I miss that. |
... |
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