US Public Health Workers Leaving 'In Droves' Amid Pandemic Burnout
- Many workers feel stonewalled by elected officials and scapegoated for the high US Covid death toll. The Guardian, Sept. 23, 2021. - Ed.
Alexandra was working in the public health emergencies unit in a major north-eastern American city when the first wave of the pandemic hit. Although her job was in public health policy research, and not treating Coovid-19 patients on the frontlines of the healthcare system, she recalls the spring of 2020 as a blur of 24-hour shifts. Beginning last March, Alexandra estimates that she and her colleagues worked the equivalent of three full-time years in 12 months. (Her name has been changed to protect anonymity.)
“There was no overtime, there was no hazard pay,” Alexandra recalls. Throughout the public health department where she worked, symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress-related physical maladies were commonplace among staff.
This summer, despite the protestations of her superiors, Alexandra quit. She says she’s one of roughly 25 staff members who have left the department since the start of the pandemic. Alexandra’s story is not unique. Just as the pandemic has fuelled a burnout crisis among frontline medical staff, it has been calamitous for the mental health of workers in public health – the data analysts and policy advisers whose recommendations are supposed to shape the nation’s pandemic response. Many feel stonewalled by elected officials and scapegoated for the death toll of Covid.
Some, like Alexandra, are opting to leave the job for good. The results of a nationwide CDC survey of public health workers, released this July, were revealing. Of the more than 26,000 surveyed individuals working in public health departments across the U.S., more than half reported recent symptoms of at least one major mental health condition. Their reported prevalence of PTSD was 10 to 20% higher than in frontline medical workers and the general public. Some public health workers, including Alexandra, cite a lack of cooperation from elected officials as a driving source of widespread overwork and discontent. Others even say they have faced pressure from elected officials to alter their findings to fit a political agenda.
.. Public health workers are at the receiving end of mounting resentment. Since last March, threats against public health officials have increased. In a high-profile incident this past July, an angry crowd targeted Dr Faisal Khan – the acting director of the St Louis department of health – at a meeting on mask mandates. The disgruntled attendees lobbed racial epithets and surrounded Khan after the meeting like a mob...
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/23/us-public-health-workers-pandemic-burnout
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