Georgia Department of Public Health (GA) careers

Georgia's 159 county health departments and 18 public health districts are the delivery end of the state Department of Public Health, and the state-level agency works across all of them. DPH calls itself the lead agency for preventing disease, injury, and disability, promoting health and well-being, and preparing for and responding to disasters from a health perspective. Its shorthand for all of that is three words: We Protect Lives.

The function list is the useful part when you are reading a job title. DPH names health promotion and disease prevention, women's and children's health, infectious disease and immunization, environmental health, epidemiology, emergency preparedness and response, emergency medical services, pharmacy, nursing, volunteer health care, vital records, and the State Public Health Laboratory. Those are twelve very different working lives inside one employer name, and the county or district named on a posting usually tells you which one you would be joining. The agency's stated values run to four: people, meaning employees treated as professional colleagues and the public listened to; science, meaning the best available research and data applied to decisions; excellence, defined as commitment, accountability, and transparency; and partnership, internal and external. Public health work in Georgia is organized around that district structure rather than a single central office.