The Board of Health’s (BOH) overall job is to protect and improve community health and safety. Unfortunately, not all community members know how this job is done. Over the past year, the BOH has mainly been working on the COVID-19 pandemic, but they also cover food safety inspections, water quality checks for private wells, safe disposal of wastes such as septic systems, and complaints about rodents, garbage, and unsafe housing. On the clinical side, the BOH investigates communicable diseases like food-born illness outbreaks, hepatitis, or other forms of illness that can be contracted from food or water (ex. lyme and chickenpox). Surprisingly, the most important thing is the BOH assures community health by working with non-government organizations. They work with hospitals to help people with no or limited access to healthcare and provide access to good nutrition for community members. The BOH’s responsibilities also include overseeing safe exercise and safe farming. Currently, they are focused on addressing the rising mental health and substance abuse issues driven by underlying socioeconomic conditions and Covid. For this issue, the BOH tries to identify risk factors and ask questions like: Are there strong social support networks in the community? Do people feel safe in their homes? Are there financial issues in certain households? From my interview with Montogmery’s Health Officer, I remember Stephanie Carey saying, “They say the Chief Executive Officer of community health is the role of the health department services and the Board of Health is our policy-making and accountability board so to speak.”

     On February 10, 2021, the BOH discussed a few projects: the opening of school, vaccination program, and the Vulnerable Populations Outreach program. They advocated opening schools five days a week for kids attending the hybrid model and wrote a letter to the President of the Board of Education and Superintendent informing them of their recommendations. The BOH’s recommendation was to combine the existing cohorts; this meant that schools should immediately begin planning to handle an increase in students, but they should continue to plan to bring all students back for full-day classes. The most important recommendation was for the BOH, along with the school physician, to continue to provide local guidance to the schools on mitigation strategies. On February 16, 2021, Montgomery’s parents received an email from the Superintendent informing that beginning March 1, 2021 cohorts will combine and attend school five days a week. The BOH is also focused on the vaccination program. So far 900 individuals have been vaccinated; the breakdown is 700 seniors, 100 first responders, 50 school staff with health conditions, and 50 qualifying adults. Somerset County is also setting up large distribution centers instead of small individual ones to get mass vaccinations and have control, but many still have trouble scheduling an appointment which is something the BOH is working on too. Their third project is identifying local vulnerable populations. The Vulnerable Populations Outreach Coordinator is Amanda Pulgarin. The vulnerable populations in Montgomery include at-risk youth, senior citizens, the homeless, and undocumented citizens. Ms. Pulgarin has reached out to the Somerset Board of Social Services, HOME of Somerset County, school guidance counselors, local religious leaders, senior service coordinators, Director of the Recreational Center, and school clerk. She found out that the main challenges for all groups are getting resources and reaching out to others for help. To address the issue BOH  created the Food Security and Wellness Program. The purpose is to target people most vulnerable by limiting and preventing their exposure to COVID-19. Princeton Elks Lodge, Rotary Club, Montgomery Food Pantry, and Municipal Alliance groups are interested in helping and have offered to provide resources. All parties will lead and/or assist in the distribution of groceries, fresh and perishable items, and shelf-stable items. The estimating start of the program is March 2021. The program will start with helping approximately 60 families and the anticipation is to help 40 more families affected by the pandemic.
   There are many ways to volunteer for the BOH. Pre-Covid scout troops were needed to support community events to enforce exercise and healthy foods. Even members of the BOH volunteer to provide oversight by measuring the outcomes of projects. They also create transparency, accountability, and continuous quality improvement for the BOH. Student volunteers are also wanted on a daily basis to help document what the BOH does and research community programs to see what best helps the community’s health. When asked about community involvement, Ms. Carey had a very memorable response: “I think being engaged in your community is both good for the community and good for you. Empowered people are healthy people. When we engage with people we tell them that they matter and when they engage with us we learn so that we can do our jobs better.”