In this episode of Plugged In to Public Health, we sit down with Jamie Gade, social determinants of health coordinator at Johnson County Public Health, to talk about Healthy JoCo, the county’s community health assessment and improvement initiative.

Jamie walks us through how public health teams combine national data sources with local surveys, focus groups, and lived experiences to understand what is really happening in their community. From measuring loneliness to assessing food insecurity, this work highlights how much nuance can be missed in large-scale data and why local insight is essential.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the student hosts, guests, and contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Iowa or the College of Public Health.

Lauren Lavin:

Hey everybody, and welcome back to Plugged in to Public Health. Today’s episode is all about what public health looks like on the ground and how communities actually decide what to prioritize, fund, and fix. We’re talking about Healthy JoCo, Johnson County’s health assessment and improvement initiative, and how local data, community voices, and cross-sector partnerships come together to shape real decisions that affect people’s everyday lives. I’m Lauren Lavin, and if it’s your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student-run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they are relevant to anyone, both in and outside the field. Joining us today is Jamie Gade, the social determinants of health coordinator for Johnson County Public Health here in Iowa. Jamie brings a real practical perspective on how public health departments collect and use data, work with community partners, and think long-term about improving population health. So in this conversation, you’ll hear how data and storytelling work together, why local context and national averages are both important, and what it actually takes to move the needle on issues like food security, mental health, and access to care.

So let’s get plugged in to public health. Plugged In to Public Health is produced and edited by the students of the University of Iowa College of Public Health, and the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the student hosts, guests, and contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Iowa or the College of Public Health. Thank you, Jamie, for being on the podcast today. Could you introduce yourself and your role at Johnson County?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. Hey, everybody. I’m Jamie Gade. I’m our social determinants of health coordinator for Johnson County Public Health. And I’ve been in this role, this specific role for about a year. And I’ve been with the county for about six years. I started in March of 2020. So my duties looked a little bit different when I first started. Definitely helping out with a lot of COVID type of work, contact tracing, and then vaccine distribution. So that was a lot different.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, that probably overtook the entire department from March until, I don’t know when.

Jamie Gade:

It was quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Props to all of our disease prevention specialists. They really jumped right in to that work and had… Oh man, we’re in it for a very long time. Man, props to the whole team on that one.

Lauren Lavin:

And we made it out. So that’s probably good props to them. So before you started that job, what does your educational background look like? And did you have a job before this?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, I did. So I actually started out, I went to the University of Iowa and I got my degree in health and human physiology and health promotion.

Lauren Lavin:

What department or what school is that in?

Jamie Gade:

College of Education, actually.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, interesting. I would not have guessed. I’m glad I asked.

Jamie Gade:

Yep. The College of Education and Liberal Arts. Yes. That was where I started. And first was pre-med first and then I was like, maybe pre-PA. Decided that wasn’t for me and stumbled into this health promotion side. But public health was very new. It was very new as an undergrad degree. So I was a little bit too far out on the class wise and everything to do that. But I think if I was… with that option, I think I would have probably done that.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, if it was as developed as it is today.

Jamie Gade:

Absolutely. Yep. Yep. It’s great. But luckily a lot of my classes covered a lot of that too. So from graduation, I went off to work as a health coach for… I was actually with Fitbit for a little bit.

Lauren Lavin:

Really?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. It was an interesting research project. I was with that and then looking at diabetes and glucose monitoring after walks and then the Fitbit side of it too, how many steps people took.

Lauren Lavin:

Interesting.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. So that was interesting. And then I ended up working for Amerigroup, the Iowa MCO, managed care organization, which is now Wellpoint. So I worked there for a little while and then found my position in public health. And I’ve just loved Johnson County Public Health ever since. So I’ve been here.

Lauren Lavin:

So you didn’t always know that you wanted to be in public health?

Jamie Gade:

No.

Lauren Lavin:

Would that be fair to say?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, I think that would definitely be fair to say. Yeah. It’s been a journey. When I read really the job description for my first role at Johnson County Public Health, I was like, “This is my dream job.”

Lauren Lavin:

Oh my gosh.

Jamie Gade:

“I would love this job.” And so it worked out. It worked out and I’m very happy that I chose that path.

Lauren Lavin:

Fabulous. So the premise or the point of this podcast today is I read something about Healthy JoCo. Is that how you-

Jamie Gade:

Yep. Healthy JoCo. Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And so I wanted to do an episode on that and that’s how I found you. So for listeners who may not be familiar, what is Healthy JoCo and what inspired its creation?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. So Healthy JoCo is our health assessment and health improvement initiative, really. It was just a program that we run that is really based on… It’s historical, I would say, that a lot of health departments have this type of initiative. And also hospitals that are 501(c))3) every three years they do a health assessment as well to keep that tax exempt status. But I’ll say as in Iowa, I would say it was around the ’90s where it was really solidified in administrative code that health departments will do this type of work. Ever since then, we’ve really developed a lot of different ways of going about collecting data and then also developing a health improvement plan. So really it’s Healthy JoCo as branding, really for communication and engagement for community members.

Lauren Lavin:

So when you say health assessment, whose health are you assessing and how do you assess that health?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, great question. So the health of the community of Johnson County, so anyone, everybody in Johnson County. We will assess, we’ll do it in many different ways. So there’s a lot of data sources we’ll pick from like behavioral risk factor, surveillance system, we’ll use like census data, we’ll use ACS, American Community Survey data from the census, and then a bunch of other data sources as well and really pair that up to see what we can understand about our community. The thing is that a lot of those data sources, it can be from a few years back. And so we will do our own data collection as well. So we will collect our own data via surveys or we’ll actually do a lot of focus groups where we get those qualitative or the just stories from folks in the community so that we can pair that up with the data that we collect too and understand a little bit more in depth about our community. We really like to collect our own data because there’s so many different areas that you just don’t understand from the data sources that are already out there.

Lauren Lavin:

And a lot of those data sources are national and there’s just nuance. When you’re looking at the county level, there’s stuff that you guys as a department know that obviously a national survey is not going to pick up.

Jamie Gade:

Absolutely. Yep. Every community is different too. So we are able to just really hone into what we want to learn about our community and that’s the part that I love so much about the whole process. So we just did a health assessment actually in the end of 2025 and so we’re looking at that data now, but before we talked with a lot of partners and we’re like, “What do you want to know about the community? What are you curious about? What’s something that’s never been measured before that we might want to measure and measure now going forward for the next subsequent assessment so we can see how are things changing? What are the trends from now to the next year?” Yeah, it’s really exciting. I think there’s a lot to uncover and-

Lauren Lavin:

What were some of those things that people wanted to know about that hadn’t been measured?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, I would say one is loneliness. So we just measured and we did a three point loneliness scale. There were just three different questions that we asked and then we were able to score that to see where we’re at. And we found about a third of the county identified then as lonely.

Lauren Lavin:

It’s a lot.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, it’s quite a lot. And so we’ve heard it nationally, you hear it too, especially out of the pandemic. We were just curious, what does that look like here? And it definitely showed that’s a pretty big area.

Lauren Lavin:

I’m glad someone’s measuring that because then we can maybe figure out how to address it.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, absolutely.

Lauren Lavin:

So when you think about the community in Johnson County, what strengths really stand out to you?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. I think resiliency, there’s a lot, especially through COVID too, we saw that and we saw partnerships and collaboration really shine to get us to be a resilient community. We know that we can’t work alone in a vacuum, that we need all of the different partners and different sectors to work together to fix these issues or to move the needle forward. So I would say that’s a big thing that I’m just very grateful for. I think we have a great diversity in the community too, which just leads into innovation and new ideas and curiosity, which is just really exciting. I don’t think I’ve ever really met someone who’s, “No, absolutely not.” There’s always a curiosity like, “What can we do better?” So I think I enjoy that a lot. Obviously, vibrant arts and culture too. So there’s just so many different assets and strengths.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Iowa City in particular is like such an interesting, I don’t know, convergence of all of those things. And I think a lot of university towns are. So if you’re listening to this and you have been to a university town, I think that is probably similar. But I didn’t realize that until I moved here. It’s a really interesting scene because you’ve got so many creative professionals and academic professionals in a relatively small space.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s just some, it’s so cyclical too where folks will move in and then they’ll move out.

Lauren Lavin:

Yes.

Jamie Gade:

Some people will stay, which is great, but yeah, it’s just an influx of new folks all the time, which is really cool.

Lauren Lavin:

Literally every year.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

So you talked a little bit about the data, doing some primary data collection and then merging that with qualitative and national surveys. So how do you bring all of that together and use that to shape public health?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. There’s a lot of different ways, I think. That’s constantly where we can get creative of how we’re going to display this and how we’re going to share this with folks, how we’re going to objectively tell the story too and not try to put our own bias in there. So yeah, that’s where it takes really a lot of different eyes from partners, especially to our community members to, “Hey, what do you think about this? How do you interpret this too?” But we’ll often do typically the reports, we’ll show it in graphs and charts. So anyone who wants that type of information who loves the data side can take a look at that stuff. But we’ll also really try to pair that voice there too. So quotes from people, from interviews maybe we’ve had or from comments that we’ve heard to give a little bit more of a human edge to what we’re collecting too.

We’ve done a lot of display on dashboards too, so folks can go in and interact with that and play with the data themselves. So that’s something that we’re looking at launching this year as a Power BI dashboard, which people can go in and really play with themselves. So those are a few different ways, but I think we try to tailor the message too if it’s really relevant to specific things going on like policy wise. So we have done with the work of our pantry food partners and other food access partners, a food security assessment for the last couple of years.

Lauren Lavin:

How timely given the SNAP cuts that had happened or what was the suspension and SNAP funding.

Jamie Gade:

Yes, absolutely. That’s like just happening and also looming. So there’s a lot of unknowns. And we’ve worked with a lot of our pantry partners to go onsite and assess folks using the pantries and how they’re doing, what their health is like, and also just the impact of the pantries on them and on their households. There’s a lot of stigma, I think, just in folks even using a pantry, but also from people who think that it’s not necessary, “We don’t need SNAP.” Or “We don’t need what have you.” Those different viewpoints there. But we’re really pairing, these are people in our community using these services and this is their story. This is what is going on that is tough and this is why they’re using these services and why it’s so important to keep these services going. So it’s the quotes stand out I think for more people than like data points do.

Lauren Lavin:

It adds texture to what can be big scary numbers. You see this is what we’re spending on it and that can sound like a lot, but then you find out like how much people rely on it or what a difference it makes in their day-to-day life and you’re like, “Okay, maybe that’s okay.”

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. It gives a different perspective and allows you to open up your mind a little bit. “Oh, that’s different than what I thought. That’s not who I thought would be using pantry or whatever.”

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And I think in a digital age, we forget about person to person contact and I think that makes such a big difference. When you learn and know about an individual, it’s really hard to not humanize their story and relate to it on some level.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. I think we all can relate to struggling in some way, even if it’s temporary or just a little bit, or even if you can’t, just try to envision putting yourself in someone’s shoes and…

Lauren Lavin:

Exactly.

Jamie Gade:

Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

So you also mentioned other partners. So who else do you partner with or does the department partner with on this type of work?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, so it depends on what pops up. Just today I was talking with folks in transportation, and we were talking about transportation to healthcare and so-

Lauren Lavin:

That’s a big deal too.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, absolutely. Thinking about what’s going on now with the rural health transformation grant and the Healthy Hometowns initiative from the state, there’s definitely an aspect there of transportation that needs to be addressed. That’s one example. With food security, we’ll work with a lot of food partners. We’ll work with the Johnson County Food Policy Council. We’ll work with the Food Access Network, which has just been really, a really cool group to see grow in the last year. We’ll work with anyone who might have that insight and really be those boots on the ground folks, I would say, that really know what to focus on. We’re not the experts in public health. We want to work and we want to understand from the experts and then work alongside to make something-

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, your facilitators.

Jamie Gade:

Absolutely, up connecting all the time, facilitating all the time.

Lauren Lavin:

Which is really important because I think public health, you can also get… Because it’s so broad that you can end up being siloed in whatever your niche is. And so you need facilitators to bridge that gap and to learn from different pieces and all of that.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We’re all part of the system. The Jellybean model, if anyone’s familiar with that, is just thinking, who do we interact with? And law enforcement’s a part of public health. The libraries are part of public health. Obviously government, schools, many different entities and systems are part of the public health network.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. It’s a big puzzle.

Jamie Gade:

It’s a very big puzzle.

Lauren Lavin:

So can you share a moment or story that made you feel especially hopeful about the work that you do or this Healthy JoCo initiative?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. I think there are a lot of different small things that have just made me feel good about the work. I think it’s always so great when we can connect people to each other and then they end up doing something super cool. I think my colleague, Susan Vileta said that once and I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s totally true.” I love when people are like, “That data was so helpful and I used it to apply to a grant and I received funding for it.” That’s awesome. We’re getting more resources into our community and I love that we helped you a little bit to make that a little bit easier. We actually have a really cool initiative through… One of our priorities is mental health. And so we have a website called CredibleMind. It’s healthyjoco.crediblemind.com.

And folks can go on there to find a bunch of different mental health resources. They can take quizzes to kind of understand a little bit more about where they’re at within their mental health journey and maybe some supports that would be helpful for them. And it’s designed to bridge a gap between seeing a therapist and then the time you schedule to the time you actually see them. So we know that can take a while, but it can also be used as a tool for in between sessions or even maybe you’re not really quite there to see a therapy, but you just want to work on some things yourself. So it gives a lot of super awesome resources. And we heard that from a community member that they shared that resource with a youth in Johnson County and then they ended up using that resource to talk to their friend about suicide. And so we were just blown away by hearing that too, that that was used as the resource for that. I think it just, it pays for itself in that point.

Lauren Lavin:

Absolutely. Even one person.

Jamie Gade:

Yep, absolutely. So those are just little but big things. I think that when we hear about it’s really cool. A lot of our work is a long game where you’ll hope that this works out in the future and that you’ll see some benefit, but you might… Public health is, I think you hear sometimes that it’s silent when it’s working. Cool. You don’t really know what’s going on as the average community member, but when it’s not working, you feel it.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, you’re aware.

Jamie Gade:

Yep. Yep. You feel it. I think about cancer in Iowa right now as well.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s getting a lot of press.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, a lot of press and for a good reason, right? We’re number two in the nation for cancer. So there’s so much more to do there, and I think there’s much more funding to be put there. And it’s an exciting space too because I think there’s a lot of opportunity. But yeah, we know that when that’s not working, what happens.

Lauren Lavin:

Something that’s struck me throughout this conversation is how proactive it needs to be in order to address these problems before their problems, because of the long-term kind of game that you’re playing. That if public health departments aren’t proactive, it’s like a little bit too late.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s hard to figure out those priority areas too.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. You’re like telling the future a little bit.

Jamie Gade:

Yep. There’s so many different ways you can look at these issues and think about the unintended consequences that will come down the line if certain policy is enacted or if what have you. There’s just a lot of those things that you can run into that it is difficult when there isn’t that funding there and there isn’t the capacity there to do what really needs to be done. And it’s also, it’s an uphill battle to convince folks what needs to be done too at times. Policy makers and leaders in the community, you really got to be on the same page or in the same boat or understand what the issue is and really try to spell that out too, which it can take time to even do that.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s also a long game where you just have to consistently add to the body of evidence until it’s like too overwhelming to ignore. But that takes a while.

Jamie Gade:

It does. Yeah, it does.

Lauren Lavin:

So what partnerships would you say have been most meaningful in making this process work?

Jamie Gade:

It’s hard to really just mention a few. I think we have just had such an awesome time working with so many different partners across many different sectors, but what really stands out I think is our recent food security assessment, it was just really great to see everybody come together and love the data too, and just really want to keep that sustainable too. I think that was, we started this project after the USTA decided that they would stop that food security assessment for nationwide that measures food and security. We already had a leg up really in our community of measuring what that’s looking right now. And so I think that alone is great for the future for us so that we know where we’re at and where we should give some resources and just thinking about the future for planning purposes, I think it’s really helpful.

But our partner, it’s just been great to work with our food pantry partners, other food access partners like Table to Table. We’ve learned so much from everybody too and what they do and it’s just really cool to see how that’s played in and how we could help support the work that they’re already doing.

Lauren Lavin:

Absolutely. So in what ways do you think Healthy JoCo has changed how the public health department approaches like public health work as a whole?

Jamie Gade:

That’s a great question. As part of the data collection and just having more of a robust… We have more capacity as a team. We are a team of five work on this, including me. And the capacity is just really great to have to dedicate to that, to the data collection, to creating those partnerships and those relationships with community members. And we, with all of that work, it’s nice to have then a health improvement plan that we can really prioritize our issues then. And we did that with the help of the community and with partners too. So having those areas is very helpful when we run into other things that are maybe outside of that saying, “This isn’t necessarily a focus of ours right now.” So I think prioritizing has been very helpful for the department, but just creating those relationships has been really helpful in other areas too of our work, coordinating with across departments and public health, like our clinical services staff who do a lot of the WIC and dental services and they do a lot of other services too.

Then we work with our environmental health folks and that department too, and they do a lot of inspections and they do food inspections as well. So we can thank them when we go to a restaurant, we don’t get sick. Also, the employees for doing what they need to do to fall, to make it healthy. Yeah, for sure. Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

I love that. So turning now as we kind of wrap this up to thinking about like the residents of Johnson County, how does Healthy JoCo affect them and also connect with them like with the results and that type of thing?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah, that’s a great question. There’s a lot of different ways I think we connect with the community. Obviously the survey is one way where we want that voice to be given through the survey.

Lauren Lavin:

Is that like a pencil and paper survey or are you calling?

Jamie Gade:

Well, we’re not calling, we’re doing it online.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh

Jamie Gade:

And we have pencil and paper too. Yeah. It’s mostly online, but we’ll go onsite too with tablets and have folks take it that way too if they don’t have access to like a computer or a phone. And we’ll try to do it many different ways of getting that out there, but that alone is just really important to get everyone’s perspective and them included in the data that we will be using. Surveys are hard. People don’t like to take surveys and they can be long and it’s tough, but I would encourage everybody to take our surveys.

If we don’t capture that in the survey, then we would look to doing interviews or just talking with folks in the community to get their perspective and their stories too. So that’s another part that’s really exciting and a nice way to pair with the data too. But yeah, I think we’re constantly looking at ways to engage the community and bringing people onsite for a meeting if they want to be involved in our health improvement planning.

We would always welcome folks to do that. I think there are different ways of outreach and engagement online, but also tabling too in person and trying to talk with people one-on-one. That’s one way we’ve tried to engage folks in that too. We do have a website, so we do post a lot of information on there at healthyjoco.com, but we also have a Substack too for a newsletter.

Lauren Lavin:

Really?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. So we’ve done a healthy JoCo Substack. It’s called our Health Hub and we have once a quarter or so, we’ll give updates out that way too. So we want to keep people engaged and want to keep them in the know where we’re at, what we’re doing, and then get feedback that way too. So we try to do many different ways.

Lauren Lavin:

So on trend with the Substack?

Jamie Gade:

We’re trying. We’re trying.

Lauren Lavin:

And tabling gets you to where the people are, so that makes sense.

Jamie Gade:

Yep, exactly.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. So final question. Looking ahead, what are you most excited about for the future of Healthy JoCo?

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. I think it’s growing a lot of our programs that we’ve got going on within Healthy JoCo so far, like CredibleMind, continuing that initiative, working. We’ve got a new upcoming class that we’ll be rolling out with the Iowa City Public Library. It’s actually with AARP with Senior Planet, but there’s a lot of technology focused classes on there that are related to access to healthcare, access to even like small business starting, just general tips for using technology, which is so important, especially for folks that are older in our community too. So growing that program and those classes too, especially over the summer, we’re looking forward to that.

There are a lot of different initiatives going on, even in our housing priority too, or maybe we would do some specific assessments, but just being present honestly at meetings and connecting with folks to see what the needs are and what we can do as public health. So there’s just a lot of really exciting things I think coming that we are just continuing to grow our program and continuing to grow our relationships with partners too. So that’s a big thing. I think when we have that great foundation, then we can do a lot more from there too when new things arise.

Lauren Lavin:

I’m excited to keep following along. Thank you to you and your whole team for doing all of that really important work.

Jamie Gade:

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Lauren Lavin:

Yes. I really appreciate this. I enjoyed listening to you and I’m sure our listeners will as well.

Jamie Gade:

Thank you. Yeah, it’s been great.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s it for our episode this week. A big thank you to Jamie for joining us and for sharing a behind the scenes look at how public health actually operates at the local level. One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation for me is that public health is both highly data driven and deeply human. It’s not just about the numbers or the reports, but about understanding real experiences, building partnerships and making decisions that often take years to show results. The work is proactive, collaborative, and more often than not invisible when it’s working well. We see how initiatives like Healthy JoCo help prioritize what matters most in a community, whether that is addressing loneliness, improving food access, or strengthening connections across sectors. It’s a reminder that effective public health depends on listening, adapting, and staying committed to the long game. This episode was hosted and written by Lauren Lavin and edited and produced by Lauren Lavin.

You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with your colleagues, friends, or anyone interested in public health. Have a suggestion for our team? You can reach us at cph-gradambassador@uiowa.edu. This episode is brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious and take care.