WATERLOO — After leading the county’s health department on an interim basis, Kaitlin Emrich is now officially in the top role.
Emrich, 38, is the new public health director at Black Hawk County Public Health. Previously, she served as deputy director from 2021 to 2022. She became the interim public health director after Nafissa Egbuonye departed in 2022.
She also worked for Linn County Public Health as an epidemiologist, assessment and health promotion manager and lead public information officer at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She received her master’s degree in public health from the University of Iowa in 2009 and is a graduate of the Great Plains Public Health Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
When Emrich came to Black Hawk County at the end of 2021, COVID-19 vaccines had been available for almost a year. Six months after her arrival, the county stopped doing contact tracing, or identifying and managing people who had been exposed to someone with COVID.
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Her main priorities as the deputy director were to communicate the effectiveness and safety of vaccines as well as how to safely return to pre-pandemic activities. In both Linn and Black Hawk counties, she said she’s proud of her work during the pandemic.
“I think that we, as public health professionals … did a fantastic job of being available to our community (by) making information that was sometimes confusing or hard to find available,” said Emrich. “We care about our communities and we want the best for them. … We did our best to look out for the people that we serve.”
She said challenges the department is facing are present throughout the public health sector across the country.
During her first year working in Black Hawk County, she saw a third of the department’s workforce turn over but said that was consistent with national projections due to retirement and people leaving the business.
An Iowa specific challenge she is expecting to encounter is the merging of the Iowa Department of Public Health and Department of Human Services earlier this year, which resulted in the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.
Kaitlin Emrich is the new director of Black Hawk County Public Health.
Emrich said she and her peers are waiting until new recommendations are released and don’t know what the exact changes will be. But she is ready to adapt.
Other changes at the state as well as the federal level include the amount of funding public health departments are receiving. Funding increased substantially several years ago due to COVID concerns but now she said it is back down to normal amounts.
At the height of the pandemic, Emrich helped write a federal grant for a Prevention for a Youth Violence program, which Linn County’s public health department was awarded. The effort underway with those funds focuses on classifying violence prevention as a public health issue. She hopes to do similar work in Black Hawk County.
Addressing violence, especially gun violence, can help people before they make adverse decisions, she said. Those decisions could result in determinants that may cause problems such as mental health issues, trauma and other decreases in overall well-being.
This goes hand-in-hand with Emrich’s desire to focus on the idea of health equity in her new role.
“What that means is that we value every person and their health. We want to improve those social conditions that can improve people’s health,” she said, giving the examples of housing, transportation, access to care and employment. “It also means that we work with different groups in very specific and sensitive ways to address the health issues that might affect them.”
Healthy hot spots: The most physically active counties in Iowa
Healthy hotspots: The most physically active counties in Iowa
Regular physical activity is beneficial for both physical and mental health. But around 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. say they don’t engage in any kind of physical exercise in a typical week, a 2021 report by Ipsos found.
Nearly one-third of U.S. adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depression disorder in 2023, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data. People treated for anxiety, depression, and psychological distress—and who exercise regularly—show fewer and less intense symptoms of those conditions than their fellow patients who don’t exercise, according to a 2023 umbrella review of medical research. The study highlighted that the most significant benefits of physical activity accrue to otherwise healthy individuals, as well as those suffering from depression and HIV.
Many studies have also demonstrated that physical exercise provides sustained boosts to cognitive function. For example, a 2020 meta-analysis of 46 randomized controlled trials established that older adults participating in aerobic activities such as running, swimming, and cycling have stronger cognition abilities and working memory capacity than their less active peers. Overall, there’s a consensus in the medical scientific community that physical activity is an essential factor in mitigating aging-related cognitive decline.
Northwell Health partnered with Stacker to analyze data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual PLACES report, released in 2023, to see which counties had the most physically active adults. The survey, administered in 2021, asked respondents if they had exercised for leisure in the past month. The data measures the share of adults who reported low or no physical activity.
The most active counties in Iowa are listed below. Counties are ranked by the share of adults who reported any level of leisure physical activity, including running, golf, or gardening. In the event of a tie, the overall population was used.
To see how Iowa compares to the rest of the country, the most physically active counties in the U.S. can be found here.
How physical activity varies across the country
Income is a potent predictor of the time a person devotes to physical exercise. People with lower incomes can find it hard to exercise because safe public spaces may not be available, gym membership and workout equipment are expensive, and they may have less flexible work schedules.
A 2018 research paper found that among adolescents and young adults, people in families with higher incomes, as well as men and white people, were more likely than others to engage in physical activity.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation reported that, in 2021, households in Northeastern and Western states earned, on average, $7,000 to $15,000 more a year than households in the Midwest and South, respectively. People who live in those regions are more likely to report higher rates of physical activity.
#25. Shelby, Iowa
– Total population: 11,770
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 76.3%
#24. Polk, Iowa
– Total population: 496,844
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 76.3%
#23. Cedar, Iowa
– Total population: 18,410
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 76.4%
#22. Buchanan, Iowa
– Total population: 20,657
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 76.4%
#21. Jasper, Iowa
– Total population: 37,764
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 76.4%
#20. Hamilton, Iowa
– Total population: 14,887
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 76.5%
#19. Scott, Iowa
– Total population: 174,170
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 76.8%
#18. Mitchell, Iowa
– Total population: 10,555
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 76.9%
#17. Boone, Iowa
– Total population: 26,723
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.0%
#16. Benton, Iowa
– Total population: 25,691
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.1%
#15. Winneshiek, Iowa
– Total population: 19,892
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.4%
#14. Marion, Iowa
– Total population: 33,380
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.4%
#13. Mills, Iowa
– Total population: 14,465
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.6%
#12. Plymouth, Iowa
– Total population: 25,650
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.6%
#11. Dickinson, Iowa
– Total population: 17,851
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.7%
#10. Sioux, Iowa
– Total population: 35,893
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.7%
#9. Dubuque, Iowa
– Total population: 98,718
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 77.7%
#8. Madison, Iowa
– Total population: 16,773
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 78.2%
#7. Johnson, Iowa
– Total population: 154,748
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 78.4%
#6. Grundy, Iowa
– Total population: 12,347
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 78.6%
#5. Linn, Iowa
– Total population: 228,939
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 78.6%
#4. Warren, Iowa
– Total population: 53,402
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 79.0%
#3. Bremer, Iowa
– Total population: 25,081
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 79.1%
#2. Story, Iowa
– Total population: 99,472
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 79.7%
#1. Dallas, Iowa
– Total population: 103,796
– Share of adults reporting any physical activity: 81.4%
This story features data reporting by Elena Cox, writing by Shakhzod Yuldoshboev, and is part of a series utilizing data automation across 49 states.
This story originally appeared on Northwell Health and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.