The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) epidemiologic workforce in non-communicable disease is comprised of 14 professional staff who hold advanced degrees (MPH, MS, PhD, DrPH) in public health, epidemiology and/or biostatistics. Many staff also hold advanced degrees in medical, allied health or technical disciplines. The majority of the epidemiologic workforce are in the Office of Health Data & Research (OHDR) located at the MSDH Central Office or satellite offices in the Jackson, MS area, or at one of three Regional Offices in the northern, central and southern part of the state. All epidemiologists are required to have advanced degrees and work-related experience. All epidemiologists are required to complete, at a minimum, HIPAA, sexual harassment, security, human subjects research, Epic (for those using the Epic health electronic records), emergency preparedness training, and implicit bias training. MSDH also supports and encourages additional training and skills building opportunities for analytic skills. OHDR also is working at identifying and securing an epidemiology staff-wide training.

Over the past 18 months, the MSDH non-communicable epidemiologic workforce has faced a number of challenges. Since March of 2020, many of the epidemiologists have been on orders and providing either full-time or part-time assistance on pandemic-related activities. In the past couple of months, most have started to return to their former primary work activities, but some remain on MSDH orders assisting with pandemic-related work or have transitioned to new positions. In addition, OHDR is undergoing a reorganization—hiring a new chief, new directors, and approximately 8 additional epidemiologists within the next 6 months and expanding the scope of epidemiologic work to include maternal and child health, oral health, chronic disease prevention, injury prevention, behavioral health, rural health, population surveillance, REDCap administration, data visualization, Epic data and reporting, and evaluation. This reorganization and expansion reflects the more complex and varied work of MSDH and the need for greater epidemiologic capacity and support to existing and new program areas. One additional challenge in the epidemiologic workforce is turnover. State salaries in epidemiology—and many program areas—are not competitive with non-governmental entities and maintaining well-trained, experienced epidemiology staff can be difficult.

During the reorganization of OHDR, oversight of the office and epidemiologic work is being performed by Dr. Dorthy K. Young, PhD, Chief Officer of OHDOR, Judy Moulder, Director of Health Statistics, and Dr. Laurin Kasehagen, PhD, Senior MCH Epidemiologist and CDC Assignee to MSDH (the interim management team). During the reorganization Drs. Young and Kasehagen and Ms. Moulder initiated an assessment of program work, funding, and deliverables and epidemiologists responsible for the support and conduct of the analytic, surveillance or monitoring, and evaluation activities. The interim management team also initiated monthly all OHDR staff meetings and regular meetings with each of the epidemiologists and surveillance system coordinators. These meetings helped identify the roles and responsibilities of the epidemiologists for the program areas they support, workloads for the next year, and challenges or needs of the epidemiology staff. The interim management team identified a number of areas requiring correction and began addressing these immediately. The interim management team also identified project-specific or skill-specific needs of some of the epidemiologists and are providing the support, education, training and mentorship. Once the new chief and office / branch directors of OHDR are in place, OHDR will conduct a more comprehensive office-wide assessment to make sure that the epidemiology workforce is adequately sized and possess the skills required in their positions and to ensure sufficient epidemiologic support is in place to better support MCH efforts.

All MCH epidemiologists are located at MSDH in Jackson, MS. Presently, the MCH epidemiology workforce is comprised of six (6) full-time epidemiologists, one (1) part-time epidemiologist, one (1) full-time epidemiology consultant, and two (2) full-time systems and operations staff. These MCH epidemiologists and technical staff support MCH-related analytic activities spanning oral health, WIC, newborn screening / birth defects, early hearing detection and intervention, lead prevention, maternal opioid use and NAS prevention, infant mortality, maternal morbidity and mortality, home visiting, family planning, breast and cervical cancer prevention, PRAMS and the Title V Block Grant application and needs assessment activities. In addition, one (1) program manager dedicates a significant portion of her time to the collection and analysis of Block Grant data. The need for additional MCH analytic support is clearly recognized. With the OHDR reorganization, MSDH is in the process of hiring at least one (1) epidemiologist and one (1) research biostatistician to support MCH activities.

With the reorganization of OHDR and the addition of a CDC MCH epidemiologist / CDC assignee, OHDR is has begun to assess training needs through annual performance evaluation and work plans. For MCH epidemiologists, OHDR promotes the use of the MCH Navigator as well as the Training Course in MCH Epidemiology Training (both archived materials and applications to future training opportunities). This summer, one of the OHDR epidemiologists will be attending the Training Course. Through CSTE and CDC, many MSDH epidemiologists are taking part in training and hands-on learning opportunities (e.g., GIS, spatial analysis and mapping; big data and AI; evidence-based public health).