Partnerships are key components of Delaware County’s one-year-old health department in its fight against chronic health problems, writes Jason Laughlin for The Philadelphia Inquirer.  

The department manages health issues in the county, tracks emerging infectious diseases, and educates the public.

It’s also looking at the complex interplay of environment, economics, race, and access to healthcare, which contribute to chronic health problems.

Those problems are being tackled through partnerships with government agencies, hospitals, and county nonprofits to avoid duplication of work and to create connections to vulnerable communities.

Resources went to local agencies to tackle rising infant and maternal mortality rates for Black women and babies, instead of creating new programs.

“The best thing they could do is get to know the work we’re doing, determine we’re doing just fine, and have the confidence they didn’t need to develop programming that was duplicative of the programming we’re already doing,” said Joanne Craig, chief impact officer for The Foundation for Delaware County.

There’s now a new call center in Eddystone with four full-time staff trained in contact tracing to handle emergency responses.

That allowed staff to contain a tuberculosis case in a Darby middle school, said Rosemarie Halt, chairman of the county’s board of health.

Read more about the Delaware County Health Department in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

CBS Sunday Morning looked at how public health works in America.