In this episode, host David Speiser, Ph.D., executive vice president at ICF, and Nicola Dawkins-Lyn, Ph.D., MPH, a behavioral scientist at ICF, speak to Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), a national nonprofit organization that tracks, evaluates, and advises public health professionals across the U.S. and its territories to provide guidance and technical assistance.

The conversation covers topics such as:

• What state and territorial public health departments can do to influence social determinants of health.
• The connections between state departments of health and other state government agencies.
• What the public health enterprise can do to unite the country around better public health outcomes.
• The difference, from a state public health leader’s perspective, between working in centralized and decentralized public health systems.