Public Health, It's Complicated - Love Letter #4
A public health official reflects on a lifetime in public health, and the heartbreak, disillusionment, and lingering hope that come with loving a field that feels both vital and indefinable.
We return to our series of Love Letters to Public Health with a letter that reflects the complicated feelings that many of us have at this time.
Jason Tiller is a public health official leading a local governmental health department during these tumultuous times. In this raw and resonant letter, Jason shares what it means to remain devoted to public health even when the relationship feels strained and uncertain. After decades of service in public health, he captures the heartbreak of watching a field he loves falter under pressure, while still holding out hope for reconnection.
If you’d like to follow Jason’s lead and share your own love letter to public health or another reflection of these complicated times, I’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch!
Dear Public Health,
by Jason Tiller, Director at the Health Department of Saline County, Kansas
It's not that I don’t love you, I just don’t like you very much right now. I have been devoted to public health my entire adult life. I find the idea of writing a love letter to public health quite difficult at this time. I didn't realize how many feelings I was having on the subject but I’m trying to write them down anyway. So here it is.
I have been in the public health field for 32 years now. I spent the first 20 years as an Army Medic, protecting the health of troops in garrison, in the field, and while deployed around the world. I have spent the last 10 plus years in governmental public health: I have been the Director of the local governmental health department for 10 years and the local health officer for the last 5 years. This means that I am the face of public health for the people of Saline County, Kansas. I am responsible and accountable for making the decisions that affect the people we serve and shouldering the heartache and happiness that those decisions carry.
I survived the COVID-19 pandemic and am still here. And while I still love you, public health, you have broken my heart. Not because of your intention, that has always been heartfelt and genuine. But because, after all these years, you are still everything and nothing and I don’t know how to talk about you or defend you properly.
Loving you, public health, has become like loving someone who has multiple personalities. With multiple different frameworks and no common description for us to rally behind, to tell people, to answer the question, “What is public health?” I can more easily describe my lunch or my children than describe you and defend you against those who don’t know you.
“The Public Health Workforce is Not OK” is so true. I am not OK. Like any committed person, I am still here. But I am wary. When the phone rings and you call, I hesitate and ask myself if I’m ready for whatever is on the other end of the phone. I used to answer your calls with excitement - now it’s with trepidation.
It’s not you, it’s me. Not true. It’s both of us. You were so content to hide in the shadows that when the light shone upon you, when the spotlight turned center stage for your big moment, you faltered, I faltered and now we dance in a stuttering fashion back and forth with big, disjointed movements that fall several beats after the music and the moment is lost.
Public health, I still love you but right now, I don’t like you. We will find our way again but that’s not today.
But soon.
Jason
Jason Tiller is the Director of the Saline County Health Department in Salina, Kansas and the County Health Officer. He has served in a variety of public health settings over the last 30 years and is a father of four and grandfather of three.
Join the Saline County Health Department for the “Let’s Talk About It” podcast: a real, unfiltered look at public health, local government, and the human stories that connect us all—because understanding builds stronger communities.
If you would like to follow Jason’s example by sharing a love letter to any aspect of public health or reflecting on your public health career, please get in touch!
Action steps - a note from Katie
Thank you for reading this newsletter for and about the public health workforce. At this tumultuous time, I’m still really not sure where we go from here. But each time that I publish this newsletter and receive positive feedback from readers, my list of ideas for action steps continues to grow. I will start to compile these suggestions here. As we learn more, let’s keep adding to this list:
Do Jason’s words above inspire you? Would you also like to write a love letter to public health? Or share your perspective on public health right now? Got something to say to or about the public health workforce? Got big feelings about the RIFs or the RTO or the EOs or the BS? I would love to publish your words here as a step towards advocacy and/or support. Get in touch.
Let’s communicate what public health is and why it matters that so many of us have been forced to leave our jobs. What is your proudest moment in public health? Complete this form to submit your public health story to be used for advocacy.
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Do you have suggestions for how to leverage this newsletter and community to be a supportive resource to public health professionals at this time? Please get in touch.
I believe in lifting the voices of the public health workforce. If you are a public health professional at any stage of your career who would like to publish an informed opinion in my newsletter, please get in touch.
Got more ideas for action steps that should be on this list? You know the drill. Get in touch.
I close by emphasising what I said in a previous newsletter:
“At this time of uncertainty for the public health workforce, let’s remember our commitment to science and evidence and data. We know that validating emotions and baggage has a place too, but we need to be able to identify them and distinguish opinion from fact.
Let’s recommit to kindness and mutual support for the public health workforce and beyond. If leaders are trying to sow divisions among us, the best we can do is to respond with empathy, and by strengthening, connecting, and lifting up one another.
Right now, the best I can offer my fellow public health professionals is a place* to gather and reflect and share and vent and organize and ask questions and offer support to one another. We’re going to need that now more than ever.”
*This is a plug for the Public Health Connections Lounge on LinkedIn, where we seek to build community and conversation among public health professionals. Join us.
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