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Public Health Week
April 4-8, 2011
Public Health in
Washington State
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Each year during Public Health Week, we profile
people working at the Department of Health. The Department of Health
plays many roles in helping to keep Washington communities safe and
healthy. These profiles will give you an idea of some of the things
we do.
This year's profiles are:
Hung Tran -
Chemist
Beth Wieman
- Microbiologist
SueAnn Reese – Injury and Violence
Prevention Grant Manager
 What
began as a college student has turned into a mission for
SueAnn Reese.
SueAnn began
working at the Department of Health in 2009, managing a U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention injury and
violence prevention grant. Since then she has also taken on
the Senior Falls Prevention Program.
SueAnn began her
career in injury and violence prevention 15 years ago as a
college intern for Safe Kids Utah. She finds her job
incredibly rewarding. She loves to hear from older adults
who have started an exercise program and because of that are
more independent.
Working in injury
and violence prevention is unique for SueAnn because of the
diversity of the issues. Her passion is preventing injuries
and violence -- for her friends, family, and the people she
serves every day.
During her off
time, SueAnn and her family enjoy boating, snow skiing,
coaching fastpitch, and volunteering.
Jennifer Sabel – Injury and Violence
Prevention Program Epidemiologist
 For
Jennifer Sabel, studying pain and injury is a step on the
road toward preventing them.
Jennifer has been
the Injury and Violence Prevention Program epidemiologist
since 2003. She first came to the Department of Health in
2000 as an epidemic intelligence service officer with the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, working in
the Office of Non-Infectious Conditions Epidemiology.
Jennifer enjoys
the diversity of issues in injury and violence prevention.
She sees a lot of potential for prevention. During the past
couple of years, she’s spent a great deal of her working
time documenting and sharing data about the unintended
consequences that accompany the dramatic increase in
prescription pain medication. Jennifer’s found it rewarding
to see several potential prevention ideas emerge.
Away from work,
Jennifer enjoys spending time with her husband and two
daughters. She likes gardening, camping, swimming, and
watching her daughters’ ballet and play performances.
Kathy Williams – Trauma Prevention
Specialist
 Think
of anything catastrophic that can happen unexpectedly, and
the odds are good it’s something Kathy Williams spends her
work days trying to prevent.
Kathy began working with injury prevention at the
Department of Health in 1989. In 1992 she joined the EMS &
Trauma Program to work with trauma prevention.
The state trauma system’s first component is prevention.
Kathy works closely with Washington’s eight EMS & Trauma
Regions. They focus on preventing the leading causes of
trauma, including motor vehicle crashes, drowning, and
driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. In
addition, they promote young driver safety and bicycle
safety.
Kathy’s main hobbies outside of work are training and
showing her dogs, gardening, cooking, baking, reading,
spending time with family and traveling.
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Safety tips for Public Health
Week –
and all year long
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Take prescription
and over-the-counter drugs as directed, lock
them up, dispose of unneeded medications, and
know the national poison control number:
1-800-222-1222.
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Prevent falls among
older adults. They can do regular exercise, have
a health care provider review medicines and have
their vision checked. Sturdy stair handrails,
secure rugs, good lighting and removing tripping
hazards make for safer homes.
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Wear your seat belt
correctly on every trip and see that passengers
do, too.
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Avoid going too fast
for weather, traffic, or roadway conditions, or
driving impaired.
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Wear a life jacket
when on the water. Washington waters are cold
and unforgiving.
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Have working smoke
alarms on every floor and in every bedroom of
your home. Refresh batteries twice a year.
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Stay with your food
when cooking on the stove. Many house fires
start from unattended cooking.
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Keep heat
sources away from things that burn, and don’t smoke
in bed.
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Washington State
Department of Health
Always Working for a
Safer and Healthier Washington
The Department of Health works with its federal, state and local
partners to help people in Washington stay healthier and safer. Our programs and services help prevent
illness and injury, promote healthy places to live and work, provide education to help people make good
health decisions and ensure our state is prepared for emergencies.
Essential programs for improving health.
Helping
prevent illness is a cornerstone of public health. We work to improve health through disease and injury
prevention, immunization, and newborn screening for prenatal disease programs.
Information that works.
The Washington State Department of Health works with many partners to provide educational and training
programs as well as health and safety information to help people make healthy choices.
Working to protect you and your family every day.
By licensing health care professionals, investigating disease outbreaks and preparing for emergencies,
we help ensure a safer and healthier Washington.
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Hung Tran - Chemist
Hung Tran uses his scientific training and skills to look
for radiation problems that might affect public health.
Hung is a chemist with the Office of Environmental
Laboratory Sciences’ Environmental and Radiation Chemistry
Group, where he has worked for more than 15 years. He
performs complex chemical separations and analyses in air
filter samples, among other tasks, and also runs the
laboratory’s thermoluminescent dosimetry program, part of
the Department of Health’s radiation monitoring work. In
his spare time, Hung has worked with several of his
colleagues to develop and adapt some exciting new chemical
separation methods they expect to reduce the time required
to analyze elements involved in radiation monitoring.
Beth Wieman -
Microbiologist An experience during her
California high school days set Beth Wieman’s long public
health career in motion. Now a microbiologist in the
Office of Microbiology’s Virology section, Beth knew in high
school that she wanted to pursue that field after she had a
month’s experience working in the San Bernardino County
Health Department’s enteric bacteriology section. After
college, she did a one-year internship in a San Francisco
Bay Area hospital. In 1978, Beth began working at the
Washington State Public Health Laboratories, located at that
time in Seattle’s Smith Tower. By that time, she had broad
experience as a microbiologist, having done routine
bacteriology, TB, parasitology, and mycology, which prepared
her well for her new position at the state laboratories. She
worked in TB the first eight months, and then moved to
Parasitology. |
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