In this episode, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun sits down with Scott Harris, the State Health Officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), for a conversation on a range of issues related to leading during a crisis, leveraging partnerships to support rural communities, building trust in public health, and ways to improve health outcomes in key areas like infant mortality. Together, they discuss the realities of rural America, where limited access to care, hospital closures, workforce shortages, and policy constraints create stark health disparities. Dr. Harris also reflects on his time as an infectious disease physician and his journey to public health and shares programs and initiatives they have implemented at ADPH, leveraging both the public health and health care sectors, to improve rural health outcomes for Alabamians.
