Shownotes
This is an episode that’s both informative and inspiring, revealing why public health matters and how it touches the lives of every county resident—every day.
Kenneth Wilson sits down with Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola for an insightful and engaging conversation about all things public health in Franklin County. Whether you’ve ever wondered what a health commissioner does, how epidemiology helps keep communities safe, or why local partnerships matter, this episode is packed with answers.
Joe Mazzola shares his unconventional journey from political campaign work to leading public health efforts, highlights the broad array of services Franklin County Public Health provides—from food inspections and mosquito control to maternal wellness and addiction support—and unpacks his agency’s innovative work tackling issues like infant mortality and substance use disorder.
The discussion also covers how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the approach to health emergencies, why community initiatives like Recover for Life make Franklin County different, and even how artificial intelligence might impact future public health efforts. Plus, you’ll get a few personal insights about Joe Mazzola through a fun lightning round at the end.
Moments
00:00 "Unexpected Paths in Public Health"
05:58 Epidemiologists: Data-Driven Health Storytellers
08:56 Health Department Services Overview
11:45 Community Health Improvement Plan
13:50 Franklin County Addiction Response Plan
19:16 Housing for Health Innovation
23:05 Beyond Nuisance Abatement
24:59 Townships: Core of Health Department
27:45 Health Prevention Strategies
30:50 "Franklin County Recovery Campaign"
33:52 Pandemic's Impact on Public Health
39:29 AI in Healthcare: Challenges & Trust
40:34 AI Needs Human Oversight
46:52 Support Franklin County Community
47:31 "Amplify Lives, Spread Kindness"
Takeaways
Here are three key takeaways:
- Collaboration is at the heart of progress: Joe Mazzola emphasizes the power of partnerships—whether it's tackling infant mortality through initiatives like Celebrate1 or addressing substance use disorder with the Columbus Franklin County Addiction Plan. Working together with local agencies, townships, and community organizations makes a measurable difference.
- Public health is more than just responding to outbreaks: From environmental health (like food safety and mosquito control) to tackling social determinants, the Franklin County Public Health team focuses on preventive services and holistic health solutions—including innovative housing collaborations for better community outcomes.
- Continuous learning from challenges: The COVID-19 pandemic was a major pivot point, highlighting the need for strong relationships, clear communication, and constant preparedness. As Joe Mazzola shares, these lessons are leading to lasting changes in how the county approaches health emergencies—with an eye on technology and equity.
talkofthecounty@franklincountyohio.gov
Copyright 2025 Franklin County Board of Commissioners
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Transcripts
Good afternoon. Welcome to another episode of Talk OF THE county. I'm your county administrator, Kenneth Wilson. It is my pleasure to be here today with Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola. For those of you that don't know, the public health commissioner is the top health person in Franklin County. I'm not calling him Dr. Mazzola, but let's just say this guy got juice. When it comes to public health, if you're from your restaurants being safe to the mosquitoes being sprayed on your road, swimming pools, vaccines, you name it, the COVID 19 pandemic put a great spotlight on public health and the work that Commissioner Mazzola does.
Kenneth Wilson [:But I just wanted you to hear it first in a way that is simple and understand that the health commissioner in Franklin county is a very important position that doesn't get a lot of headlines. He doesn't want a lot of headlines, quite frankly, because it would be linked with outbreaks. And outbreaks aren't the thing that public health directors want. They want. They want the healthiest population possible. Population health is what they do. So, Mr. Mazzola, that was an informal introduction to you and your work.
Kenneth Wilson [:So tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to pursue a career in public health and what continue to motivate you to do this work. Because it's not like if we went to any of the many colleges and universities on campus. Just like me saying, who wants to be a county administrator? Not many people raise their hand. I don't think many kids will raise their hand and say that they want to be the health commissioner somewhere. Although one kid came to shadow me and he said he wanted to be a county administrator a few years ago. And I was like, okay, I never thought of young person would aspire to do this. But anyway.
Joe Mazzola [:Well, Mr. Wilson, thank you so much for the invitation to be on the podcast here on the show today. Great question, and thanks for the introduction. Very kind of you to say a couple of things about public health and the work that we do. To answer your question, if you would have asked me if I was ever going to be a health commissioner one day, I would have said probably the same thing. I don't know what that is. I'm not sure I would like to do that kind of work. But I have found that in my career that things sort of twist and turn a little bit, and all of a sudden you find yourself on a path that maybe you weren't thinking about.
Joe Mazzola [:But I'm really grateful for the opportunity. It's been now almost 10 years that I've been at Franklin County Public Health, and before that I was at the state health department for seven years, and before that worked in tobacco control and prevention. And. And so my background, actually my undergraduate degree is in marketing and political science, of all things. But as I started out in my career, I knew that I wanted to do something in the public sector, something that could contribute to kind of a bigger cause. And that kind of what's led me, that's what led me into tobacco prevention and cessation and some activities there. And then all of a sudden I was in state government, and now here I am at Franklin County Public Health. I have a master's degree in public administration, which is a requirement to have.
Joe Mazzola [:If you're going to be a health commissioner, you do need to have a master's degree either in public health or in public administration. So when I received that almost 10 years ago, that gave me an opportunity to move from the state health department to the local health department here in Franklin County. And as you said, public health has so many different components to it. It's a really interesting job, and I say a lot at the health department. I'm really grateful for the opportunity not only to be in public health, but to work at Franklin County Public Health and in this community and in partnership with the board of commissioners and so many community partners. So it's been a great career so far and very grateful for the opportunity.
Kenneth Wilson [:So you were in marketing and poli sci.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes.
Kenneth Wilson [:So you put those two together. You could be running campaigns as campaign director.
Joe Mazzola [:I did that.
Kenneth Wilson [:And put somebody in office.
Joe Mazzola [:I did that. I did. I worked on a congressional campaign in Pennsylvania. I worked on a state senate campaign in the state of Missouri. I worked on a campaign in Cleveland for the local school board there. And then that led me to doing some policy work with tobacco prevention and cessation. So at the American Lung Association. So, interestingly, you said that I do have some political background and some campaign work, and then sort of the rest is history.
Kenneth Wilson [:I'm totally going to go off script. I always have a script here, but I always like to provide value for those that take the time to tune in to this podcast. Will you tell the Talk of the county audience what does an epidemiologist does and why epidemiology is so important in our lives?
Joe Mazzola [:So an epidemiologist is trained in analyzing information and then making recommendations for how to respond to that information and basically telling a story about what the data is telling us. So, for example, epidemiologists do Everything from public health surveillance, which looks at kind of broader trends in the community, all the way to outbreak response. So when we think about things like a measles outbreak, our epidemiologists look at the data and understand who is affected, which individuals are potentially affected, how is the disease moving from place to place. So they're storytellers when it's all said and done. But they have this really unique blend of skills to analyze data and then turn that data into recommendations and actions to respond to whatever that particular topic is. It's a really unique discipline. We have some great epidemiologists that work at Franklin County Public Health and they really are the individuals who help us understand what a community looks like in terms of the health information for Franklin County.
Kenneth Wilson [:Yeah. Now people that listen here will be able to think of an epidemiologist in a different way if somebody just ask them what it is. Because you just think of it. You don't think about quant, simply put it like the study of disease and data and. And figuring stuff out, so to speak.
Joe Mazzola [:Sometimes epidemiologists are called disease investigators or disease detectives, depending on which particular topic they work on. But they are incredibly skilled. And I would encourage, if someone's looking to go into public health, an epidemiologist would be a discipline that's really worth exploring.
Kenneth Wilson [:I sort of cherry picked what Franklin County Public Health does, but for the benefit of the listeners, give the elevator version of what Franklin County Public Health does. The complete menu of services that Franklin County Public Health offers.
Joe Mazzola [:Well, before I forget, the complete menu of services will be on our website, which is myfcph.org but you hit on a couple of court services that we do first. First and foremost, we are charged with enforcing environmental health regulations for the county. We do that by statute and we do that by delegation of authority from our state health department and the state epa. So we start with things like food inspections and license for food operators. You mentioned mosquito control. We also license all the community pools, public swimming pools, body art facilities, campgrounds and those kinds of things. When you think about our prevention and wellness division, which you mentioned, our vaccine clinics. So we have a immunization clinic that we offer at Memorial Hall.
Joe Mazzola [:We also have community based immunization clinics throughout the county on a monthly basis. You mentioned the epidemiology already. So when we think about infectious disease reporting, we're responsible for all of that information that gets reported to the health department. There's a whole host of reportable diseases that have to be reported to the local health department. For us to investigate and to make sure that we're documenting. And then we also have what's called our maternal child health program, which includes home visiting, which because of the funding that we have from the board of commissioners, we're able to do home visits for new parents and for infants. And then we also administer a program called complex medical help program, which we do on behalf of the state health department to help families who have children with really complicated and complex medical conditions to help them do case management and care coordination for them. On the other side of the health department, we also do a lot of health promotion activities, and we think about those community events and working with our partners to address things like chronic disease.
Joe Mazzola [:We have health educators, which we're responsible to employ by statute. We also do emergency preparedness and response activities. We also do addiction and behavioral health and addiction services, and we also do care coordination. So we employ community health workers, again, with a lot of support from the board of commissioners. So that's kind of the big picture.
Kenneth Wilson [:Topic areas life saving work, particularly infant mortality work. I mean, literally saving lives. Is no secret that the infant mortality rate in a county as great as Franklin county does not rest where we want it to be. But we're doing some innovative things, working with partners like root, that deals with difficult pregnancies and has not missed a mark in their whole entire history, in my understanding.
Joe Mazzola [:That's correct. That's correct.
Kenneth Wilson [:You know, that is, we're not just accepting, not being at the level we want to be when it comes to infant mortality. We are in there fighting every day to turn these numbers around.
Joe Mazzola [:We are. And that's been our priority ever since I've been at the health department. And, you know, as we think about initiatives like Celebrate1, you know, we are doing this in a collective impact kind of an approach so that we're all working together in a coordinated fashion so that we can continue to not only reduce infant mortality overall, but also close those disparities that we continue to see.
Kenneth Wilson [:And before I switch topics, tell the audience a little bit about the importance of a chip, a community health improvement plan, and why does it matter?
Joe Mazzola [:Sure. So we're required to put together a community health improvement plan every three years. It's one of the things that we're actually sort of graded on by our accreditation body that accreditates health departments. The importance of a CHIP is that it helps us as a community align all of our resources, all of our priorities, all of our efforts on certain areas of how to improve the health of our community. So right now we have a chip that's actually going to be ending here in the next couple of months. But it's been a way for us to bring together dozens and dozens of partners and focus in on certain priority health outcomes that we wanted to achieve as a community. And so for us, it really is. We like to try to convene those partners, but it's a way to coordinate how we work together so that we're all kind of again, moving in the same direction.
Joe Mazzola [:So whether it's infant mortality, addiction, social determinants of health, health equity, those kinds of things, we're all working on the same priorities. We're all linking arms and saying, these are the strategies. Here are the things that we're trying to achieve as a community.
Kenneth Wilson [:Thank you for that, Health Commissioner. You know, Franklin county does collaboration well. Partnerships well. We work together collectively to deal with the tough stuff.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes.
Kenneth Wilson [:And substance use disorders. We've been through all of the things that opioids can do to a community. Talk a little bit about your personal engagement and commitment to the Columbus Franklin county substance use disorder addiction work, as well as talk about how people might not know the work that you personally are very engaged in with the Franklin county corner and the forensic Science center. Sure.
Joe Mazzola [:So the Columbus Frank County Addiction plan, I think, is another great example of us again working together, putting together a plan to say how can we address the disease of addiction here in our community in a coordinated way. Franklin County Public Health is part of the steering committee of the plan and we participate in lots of different strategies throughout the plan. We do have funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which really supports our work. And all of that work that we were funded to do at the federal level is aligned with the plan. One of the key components to that, I think, is what you're getting at is we're able to fund work at the Franklin county coroner's office to help us understand more about, you know, what were the circumstances around an individual's death so we can better understand how to prevent future deaths for Franklin county residents. So we facilitate an overdose fatality review committee and then we also employ work and resources to test the drug supply in our community. So again, so we can have better insight and analysis in terms of what exactly are we trying to prevent in Franklin County. Going back to your question about epidemiologists, we employ three full time epidemiologists just on this particular topic alone at Franklin county so that we can create data and reports not just for our work, but, but to inform the Community at large.
Kenneth Wilson [:Thank you. What do you see as in kind of further going deeper into that. What do you see as the biggest public health challenges and opportunities right here in Franklin county today?
Joe Mazzola [:Well, I will answer that not because of what I think, but what I think, what our community has said. And that is every three years, we do a health assessment. It's called Health Map 2020. Well, this year is 2025. And our community through has identified five priorities for Franklin county moving forward. And hopefully I can remember all five off the top of my head. The first one is injury prevention, which includes unintentional overdoses. Maternal and child health would be the next one.
Joe Mazzola [:Housing and social determinants of health would be one. And then adverse childhood experiences, which is a new priority for Franklin County. So we've been working to raise awareness around adverse child experiences for now, four or five years, and we have identified that as a priority for us moving forward, which we're really, really grateful for, because we know how ACEs affects really the whole life continuum. So we're thankful for that opportunity to identify that as a priority and hopefully minimize ACEs in our community.
Kenneth Wilson [:Yes. Because one of the things I say is that one of our tallest tasks in this community is to prevent adverse childhood experiences from growing into adverse adult experiences.
Joe Mazzola [:That's right. That's right.
Kenneth Wilson [:And a lot of times it continues. It just escalates.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes.
Kenneth Wilson [:It starts when they're a child, and then it escalates through the period of them being. Being into adulthood. It crushes life expectancy. It absolutely crushes life expectancy. These experiences.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes. The higher the ACE score, the more likely an individual's not going to graduate high school. The more likely that they are going to have addiction issues, the more likely that they're not going to be able to hold gainful employment. And ultimately, like you're mentioning, the higher the likelihood that they're going to die prematurely. So it absolutely is fundamental to the work that we do across the continuum, whether we're thinking about infant mortality, Future Ready 5, our addiction work, and so forth. So that was the fourth priority. The fifth is mental health and addiction. So our community partners, working with Columbus Public Health, our hospital partners, and a whole host of social service agencies have identified those priorities based on the data.
Joe Mazzola [:Again, I'll go back to the epidemiologist. They put all this information together, we looked at it, we reviewed it, we discussed it, and we said, where are our best opportunities to improve health in Franklin County? And those are the five that are going to be our priorities for the next Three years. And that will inform our next community health improvement plan, which will begin in 2026.
Kenneth Wilson [:Yes. You know, talking to county listeners, one of the things that I like about our health commissioner is you're willing to go outside of the box. And I can rarely think of occasions where you said that's not what we do, that's not what we have done, therefore that's not what we are interested in doing. And when you mention housing and you mentioned health and the linkage together, you've been one of the persons that had been saying that a long time. And when the opportunity came for you to step up and collaborate with Franklin county health and human services agencies to enter into a contract for temporary shelter for individuals, you were ready to do it.
Joe Mazzola [:Well, when we were approached about that, it was kind of a no brainer for us because, you know, we're not in the housing business, but we know that housing is just directly linked to the opportunity for optimal health. So most health departments don't do that. Most health departments don't have one, a partner in the board we have with the board of commissioners to help fund this, but two to then say, okay, we're going to work with hotels, we're going to work with community based partners to get people into a safe place and then to employ community health workers to help them figure out a path forward. That has been one of the more transformational projects that we've been a part of over the last. Now I think it's been a year and a half. And so my answer to when someone will approach us and say, hey, what do you think about it? My answer is always yes, unless it has to be a no. And I'm always, always thinking about how can we continue to be not just innovative, but also responsive to the needs of our residents. Because as the saying goes, we keep doing the same thing, we're going to get the same results.
Joe Mazzola [:And as long as we know that it's an evidence, informed that we're going to evaluate it, that we're going to look at, is it making a difference so that we can continue to make those investments in a way that we know is going to make an impact in the community, we're going to continue to say yes to those opportunities.
Kenneth Wilson [:Yeah, I mean, we gotta continue to be innovative, be responsive and not limit ourselves. Find a way to be able to do things differently, to uplift each and every resident of the county. Cause it's tough when you say every resident every day because you got to put some actions behind that.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes, absolutely.
Kenneth Wilson [:You got to put actions behind it. And every day, the challenges can seem to grow in our community. We're blessed to be the largest county in the state of Ohio, but we're steady growing. But the challenge is that is people are looking for opportunity when they come here, and people have challenges they face when they come here. And it takes a network. You gotta build an ecosystem to help these people reach their full potential.
Joe Mazzola [:That's right. That's right. So we, you know, that's why we. Part of our mission statement is partnership. It's right there in the mission statement for Franklin County Public Health. It's all about partnership.
Kenneth Wilson [:And it's, you know, we've been in a community where we. We have, in fact, done more than probably a public health department would consider to do. It's easy to think about identifying a public property that is a nuisance and unhabitable for. For people to live in, but then what you're going to do about it.
Joe Mazzola [:Right.
Kenneth Wilson [:You know, you shut down. Part of the traditional role of some public health departments is to look at a housing complex and say, that's a public health nuisance due to rodents, due to the lack of the sewer systems and the toilets working properly. All of the things that people need to live in a respectful, decent fashion.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes. But that's not where the story ends. And I think that's maybe what you're getting at.
Kenneth Wilson [:That's what I'm getting at. Keep on following me now.
Joe Mazzola [:Yeah, we can do the nuisance abatement. That's that. I mean, not to oversimplify, but that's the easy part. You know, the hard part is what comes after that. What's the next step, not just for that property, but for that family who may be living there, you know, so that we can improve. You know, our goal is to improve the conditions so that individuals can have optimal health. Well, what are those conditions? And so we can abate the nuisance. But then there might be some other things that maybe that family or that community needs.
Joe Mazzola [:And so we're always kind of looking at. Trying to think about these things holistically.
Kenneth Wilson [:Yeah. And Health Commissioner Mazzola, you've built up trust amongst local government officials, and I'm a zero in on townships. Townships believe that you are going to be at the table and looking out for their interests. Talk about how you develop that, confid that their confidence in what motivates you to be at the table and represent a smaller unit of government.
Joe Mazzola [:Well, again, it's very kind. I'll never forget When I was appointed Health Commissioner January 2017, one of the first phone calls I got was from Chet Cheney, who is the president of the Franklin County Township Association. He said, hey, can we have some breakfast? And you know, let's have a conversation. And from there on in, I prioritize and have continued to prioritize those relationships with our elected officials. Our townships are the backbone to our health jurisdiction. We are a general health district. So by statute, we're actually responsible first and foremost to our townships and villages in Franklin County. We also contract for public health services with 15 other local cities across Franklin County.
Joe Mazzola [:But it's our townships that really are the core of our existence as a health department. And we have credit to our staff. We have really emphasized those relationships so that a township administrator, a township trustee, an employee of a township can reach out to anyone at the health department anytime for anything that they may need for their office or for their local constituents. And we really prioritize going to township association meetings, township administrator meetings, community events, making sure that we're developing those relationships. And so, you know, it's something that we really emphasize so that we know we have trusted partners with our local elected officials. And certainly our townships really are vital to that as well. Right.
Kenneth Wilson [:So we need to go to the county fair together because you, you're a popular man at the county fair because you got, you built sound relationships with all of our officials that at the.
Joe Mazzola [:Local level you do need to go to the fair. It's a great event.
Kenneth Wilson [:That's quite a compliment. Now they probably, you know, they'll be looking for you to check out them food vendors though, when you up in there.
Joe Mazzola [:That'll be done before we get there. That'll be done before we get there.
Kenneth Wilson [:They'll be like, oh, here come the health commissioner. We gotta make sure these elephant ears are all safe. Make sure we didn't square, got all the lemons all scraped and all set for the lemon shake and et cetera, et cetera. This is meant to be a laid back conversation. This is one of the things we do on Talk of the County. Let's now talk about prevention. That's really the core of what you do. You're seeking grants to focus on prevention.
Kenneth Wilson [:Like you don't want 12 year olds smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco. You don't want people doing unhealthy things. You don't want people vaping that aren't of age. You probably don't want people vaping, period. I don't know what you want. So talk about prevention.
Joe Mazzola [:Well, we could talk for a while about prevention, but I would say we got five minutes. How much time do we have? Five more.
Kenneth Wilson [:Probably got five to seven minutes because they gonna. The team here gonna, like, shut us down before we get done.
Joe Mazzola [:So, yeah, we think about prevention a lot, whether it's vaccine, preventable diseases, whether it's primary prevention, help with health education, like, you're talking about, in terms of, like, things like tobacco and vaping, improving opportunities for physical activity and nutrition. And so primary prevention is certainly the most important. But we also talk about secondary prevention. So things like harm reduction, for example, we think about how can we reduce the impact of something in our community. And so everything that we. All the programs that we have at the health department, we look at prevention, and we kind of think about kind of designing those programs in a way where it's going to have the most impact for our residents. And a lot of the times we can focus really in on primary prevention. But sometimes we have to also think about, you know, secondary or even, you know, kind of what they call tertiary prevention.
Joe Mazzola [:But the idea is that we're always thinking about how can we reduce the burden and how can we improve opportunities for, again, for that optimal health. Our goal at the health department, we have one goal, and that's to incorporate equity into everything that we do. So when we think about prevention, prevention doesn't mean the same thing to every individual and every community. And so, you know, we're also thinking about prevention from that perspective as well.
Kenneth Wilson [:Now, this podcast is available on video, YouTube, as well as on all of the places where you get your podcast. So you have a very colorful lapel pin on there.
Joe Mazzola [:Those.
Kenneth Wilson [:When they see the episodes, I want to give you the opportunity to talk about Recover for Life.
Joe Mazzola [:Well, that's a perfect setup for this because I have a pin for you, too. So Recover for Life is a campaign that we developed. Here's your pin.
Kenneth Wilson [:Thank you.
Joe Mazzola [:You're welcome. Recover for Life is a campaign that we created. We mean the health department created four or five years ago with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it's really a campaign that is designed to break down and reduce stigma in our community about mental health and addiction. And so we think about recovery. Recovery isn't one day. It's not one week. It's not one month.
Joe Mazzola [:It is basically forever. It's for your entire life.
Kenneth Wilson [:Repeat that again. Health Commissioner. That was a dime right there.
Joe Mazzola [:Well, recovery isn't about one day. It's not about one activity. It's not about one particular Interaction. Recovery is a journey, and it's something. When someone is in recovery, it is something that is all encompassing. It's. And it's our responsibility to provide a community that helps them with that recovery and makes sure that they are successful in that recovery along that journey. So Recover for Life is a great campaign.
Joe Mazzola [:It's something that we've been promoting across Franklin county in billboards and storefronts with our school districts. Our high school athletic association has done some work with us for Recover for Life. And so we're looking for more opportunities to really get that message out to the community that Franklin county is a community that supports recovery, that helps individuals when they're in recovery and throughout the rest of their journey. And so it's a campaign that's got lots of great resources for individuals who are seeking that, whether it's for themselves, for their family. And so for us, it's a great way to message and to get information out into the community. And it's been a great campaign for us. So I did bring this for you as well.
Kenneth Wilson [:Thank you.
Joe Mazzola [:Whether it's for, you know, your morning coffee or your water, I'm a cup guy. You're a cup guy. Thank you.
Kenneth Wilson [:Recover for Life. What's the website? I know you know the website Recover for Life, so you can go to.
Joe Mazzola [:Our website, myfcph.org and you'll see the link for Recover for Life with more resources about whether it's treatment, whether it's primary prevention. As we talked about, everything's there.
Kenneth Wilson [:So programs like Recover for Life is what makes Franklin county different. That's what makes Franklin county different, is that we have so many opportunities for people to rebuild, refresh. You always can find someone that is willing to accept you saying you're not okay and that there is help there. That is one of the things that makes me proud to be a resident here in Franklin County. So thank you for talking about Recover for Life. And hopefully, if there's anybody out there that's listening, that knows someone, or you may be personally on that journey, don't fail to seek help if you're feeling a little weak. It is okay. It is okay.
Kenneth Wilson [:We all are human beings, and we all can have times of vulnerability. So if you need help, please get help, because this community is here for you. I know Franklin County Board of Commissioners, that's what they stand on, is helping each and every resident of the county in any way we can with the county resources that are available through good times and bad. They're always going to do the very best they can. So thank you. Let's talk about now. What lessons did you learn during the COVID 19 pandemic that reshape the approach to community health and preparedness today?
Joe Mazzola [:Yeah, well, it reshaped everything. The pandemic really reshaped our work in public health from all kinds of different perspectives. One of them is like, I think kind of with your lead in, people know what public health is now, I think a little. But it's not just about responding to pandemics. And I think we touched on so much more about what public health is all about and why public health is so important. But from an emergency response standpoint, we went through an exercise of really looking at what did that response, how did that response go for us in our community? And thanks to the commissioners for some funding, we were able to really put together a comprehensive report and action steps about how can we improve our capabilities here in Franklin county for the next public health emergency, whatever that emergency might be. So we want to make sure that we have the right capacity. We want to make sure we have the right expertise.
Joe Mazzola [:We want to make sure we have the right partnerships, how we communicate information to the general public, to our stakeholders. So it really helped us reevaluate everything that we do, and that's what emergencies do. Sometimes it gives you kind of a need to make sure that you are looking at ways to improve as a agency and as a community. So the pandemic, you know, taught us lots of different things. But one thing I'll just emphasize is that it just. It really taught us how important relationships are in our community where we could. At any point, I could pick up the phone and call you. I could pick up the phone and call any of the commissioners.
Joe Mazzola [:I could pick up the phone and call any mayor and any superintendent. And those relationships are what mattered through that response, Those trusted relationships that individuals had with us, our staff, and all of our partners who helped part of that response. It was a community response. The pandemic was not about Franklin County Public health. It was about this entire community kind of locking our arms again and just saying, we're going to take this one day at a time and we're going to get through this, and we're going to make the best decisions and the best recommendations we could at the time when we. When we had the information that we had. So it was. It was quite a couple of years and very difficult first for.
Joe Mazzola [:Not just for us, but I know for so many who lost a family member or a friend or a colleague, it was Very difficult times for our community for and for, you know, obviously for the state and for the country. But it taught us a lot of lessons and it helped us improve as an agency.
Kenneth Wilson [:What does the future of public health look like? Will things like artificial intelligence change the face of public health? Just asking you to look in a crystal ball, we all know that. It's just there's. You don't know what's going to happen. But just from your gut, what do you think public health looks like a decade from now?
Joe Mazzola [:So I can tell you, and we're both real. We're not artificial intelligence. That was a joke. Yeah. Okay. So two things I know for sure are going to change artificial intelligence, public health. One, communications. We are actually part of a national communications network for communications directors across the nation, and they have already put together a report about how artificial intelligence is going to change the way that we communicate information about public health across our community.
Joe Mazzola [:The second is data. How can we more effectively analyze and receive data more timely? And AI is already starting to do that. One of the things that I'm really excited about is the community information exchange that this county has invested in, and we're going to start to build here in the next couple of years that has an AI component to it where we're going to be able to share information, analyze information, and really act upon information so much more efficiently. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that AI is going to be supporting some of that and getting residents connected to resources more efficiently. So it's going to be. I think it's definitely going to change how we do our work, but our core mission is probably not going to change.
Kenneth Wilson [:What type of. Do you think we're going to have to give guidance to residents, to individuals, as it relates to AI and all of the. The tools available. I won't go to calling them all out. There's a, you know, because there's. Right now, there's a, you know, there's some websites that you put in some. Some symptoms, and you might be, you know, thinking you gonna not be around for 48 hours later, put the wrong symptoms in, and people kind of get nervous. But they.
Kenneth Wilson [:Instead of going to the primary care physician, urgent care, they type in and search, and it'd be like, you got. You about to have a aneurysm in 15 minutes or something. Yeah, well, I think AI gonna be like kind of.
Joe Mazzola [:Yeah, I think that's some of the challenges is that individuals may seek and find information that might not be reliable. We actually used An AI chatbot during the pandemic on our website, for individuals to put in their symptoms, to put in information so we can get them connected to a primary care office or to get them to a vaccine clinic to help them receive a COVID 19 test kit, which we were really excited about being able to do. But at the end of the day, you have to have trust in the information that you're getting. So I think it's going to be really interesting to see how that transpires. Nothing will replace, though, that individual relationship that you have with your healthcare provider and having that direct connection with the primary, particularly with the primary care physician.
Kenneth Wilson [:I'm just picturing people saying, how do you know that's your diagnosis? I got an AI diagnosis. AI said it right.
Joe Mazzola [:That's not good. That's not good.
Kenneth Wilson [:AI says I can have all of these calories and I'm not gonna gain weight. People could just like. I believe in artificial intelligence. I spoke recently on a panel about artificial intelligence. I just think that you need some parameters. People need some guidance because you can't just let AI just kind of take over to the point where you don't seek a second opinion.
Joe Mazzola [:Right? Yeah. Guidance and guardrails.
Kenneth Wilson [:Yeah. It's coming. I know it's coming. It's here. It's in so many ways, but I worry about it. Making human decisions.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes, absolutely.
Kenneth Wilson [:And in public service, there's a lot of decisions that I don't want reserved to a person that don't breathe and have life experiences. But we shall see what the future holds.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes.
Kenneth Wilson [:We are now going to Health Commissioner, go into the lightning round and I'm just going to just randomly present some things to you and can take a moment to answer. There's no clock, there's no buzzer.
Joe Mazzola [:Okay.
Kenneth Wilson [:I started this a few podcasts ago, just randomly, just to I like to keep something new, something fresh. I think this is the second season now. Something like that, I'm told. We in. So we gonna start the lightning round. So Pepsi or Coke?
Joe Mazzola [:When I don't drink soda anymore, but.
Kenneth Wilson [:Coke, I would expect that from the health commissioner. You over the lightning don't drink soda no more.
Joe Mazzola [:I haven't had a soda.
Kenneth Wilson [:You don't drink? Sugary. Not even. Not even. Zero. He didn't say you don't.
Joe Mazzola [:I haven't had a soda in probably 10 years, but when I did, it was Coke.
Kenneth Wilson [:I'm about to ask you another one. A cookie or a carrot?
Joe Mazzola [:What time of day?
Kenneth Wilson [:7 o'. Clock.
Joe Mazzola [:Carrot. PM carrot. Can't have sugar at night. I might have a cookie in the afternoon.
Kenneth Wilson [:Cookie in the afternoon. Maybe you don't want sugar at night. No sugar. Earlier. Sugar earlier. In the morning.
Joe Mazzola [:It's gotta be in the afternoon.
Kenneth Wilson [:In the afternoon. Okay. Beach or mountains?
Joe Mazzola [:Beach for sure. I don't like heights, but if I had to choose beach or lake, I'd choose lake.
Kenneth Wilson [:What's your favorite color?
Joe Mazzola [:Blue.
Kenneth Wilson [:Franklin county blue. That's a good choice. Good choice. Good choice. If you wasn't a health commissioner, what would you. What would be your dream job?
Joe Mazzola [:Professional golfer.
Kenneth Wilson [:Professional golfer, yes. Are you good at golf?
Joe Mazzola [:Not really, but I love to play.
Kenneth Wilson [:That's all that matters. I heard. Just loving the play.
Joe Mazzola [:I love to play. I do. Yes. I'm okay. I'm okay. I don't like. I don't. I won't embarrass myself, but I'm not like a scratch golfer.
Joe Mazzola [:But I do love to play golf.
Kenneth Wilson [:What is the dream golf course for you to play on?
Joe Mazzola [:Probably Augusta National. I've been very fortunate. I've been to play some pretty nice courses, but I think Augusta is probably the one that everyone talks about.
Kenneth Wilson [:What's your favorite meal?
Joe Mazzola [:Probably Sunday dinner that my dad used to make. Spaghetti, meatballs. He's, you know, he's a great cook. So that's probably my favorite meal.
Kenneth Wilson [:Spaghetti, meatballs. Marietta, Red sauce.
Joe Mazzola [:Yes.
Kenneth Wilson [:I already think you might say neither. Here. Saltier. Sweet snacks.
Joe Mazzola [:Salty.
Kenneth Wilson [:Okay, two more left. Corvette or minivan?
Joe Mazzola [:I've not. I've never driven either one of them. I don't have a minivan. I don't have a Corvette.
Kenneth Wilson [:If you had, you got to pick one.
Joe Mazzola [:I'm going to say minivan to put the golf clubs in.
Kenneth Wilson [:Okay. Okay. And the last drum roll, please. Final question. What is your favorite song of all times?
Joe Mazzola [:Best of what's around by Dave Matthews.
Kenneth Wilson [:Okay. I enjoyed this episode. Talk of the county talking with our Health commissioner, Joe Mazzola. I think that if you listen to it this all, you will come away. While we had an aim of informing and trying to produce a smile or two, I think that we did provide some content for you all to learn a little bit more about the field of public health. Any parting words from our health commission? I'm gonna give you the last word. Before I get by.
Joe Mazzola [:I'm gonna say first, thanks for having me.
Kenneth Wilson [:I always had the last word, by the way. Cause those that know that if you know, you know I'm gonna have one last thing to say. But I'm giving you the last official word.
Joe Mazzola [:Okay.
Kenneth Wilson [:What I'm gonna say is not gonna be really that big a deal. It's just what I do.
Joe Mazzola [:Okay. I would say thanks to all of the Franklin county employees who have already donated to the combined charitable campaign. And if you haven't yet had an opportunity, please consider doing so, because we're caring for this community, and I am so honored to be part of this campaign to help co chair it. But I would say that's my parting thought, is that. That we're not just about caring for this community in this role. We're caring for this community as we leave work every day. And it's a generous community, and we're gonna continue to do everything we can to support our residents. So thanks for having me.
Kenneth Wilson [:Amplify the lives of your neighbors is what he's saying. Amplify the life of your neighbors. And I'm gonna end talk of the county the way I always do with this quote. Do you? Because nobody else has time to thank you.
