In any given day as the associate director for policy and communication for the CDC’s Division of Population Health in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, UNC Asheville alumna Michele Sussman Walsh may be working on a strategic plan for the healthy schools program, helping congressional aids understand the importance of the work being done in the Alzheimer’s disease program, or approving website content for a program on workplace health.
“I do a variety of things,” Walsh said. “I work with programs across the division and support policy development, strategic planning and program development. We work in partnerships and external relations and professional relations and what we call issues management, which is crisis management, and also direct our communication, overseeing all of our websites, social media, media, those kinds of things.”
Her work focuses on programs that support the American population across the lifespan—including the populations that have been most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With older adults being at much higher risk, we’re working very closely with our subject matter experts to figure out what are the right messages, and crafting those messages, and getting out the guidance,” Walsh said. “We work really closely with the scientists, the infectious disease experts, the data that are coming in every day.”
Walsh is also working with programs for those with diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, which put them at higher risk for complications from COVID-19. There are other challenges for them, including access to medicine. “Some of the medicines that they take to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, some doctors have been prescribing those in the hope that they may help COVID, so there’s been shortages and some real challenges for those patients.” Walsh said. “So we’ve been working with our partners to help craft messages for them.”
And there are other populations facing unique challenges, as well, Walsh said. She is currently working with the CDC’s Healthy Tribes program to address the challenges faced by American Indian tribes across the country during the pandemic. “Of the American Indian population, about 60% live in urban areas, actually,” she said. “Often to take advantage of IHS (Indian Health Service) health services they have to go back to their reservations. There’s a whole host of issues right now.”
Even populations that seem to be less severely affected by COVID-19, like younger children, are in need of guidance as education and government officials look at ways to re-open schools.
With such a wide variety of roles and responsibilities, Walsh says her liberal arts background and education in psychology at UNC Asheville comes into play every day.
“I think having that basic grounding of humanities is really helpful…just to be a well-rounded person, and understand the world around you,” Walsh said. “I have to work with scientists and doctors and communicators and epidemiologists and project officers, public health advisors and congressional staff who are coming from all different perspectives, and they don’t often necessarily have a health background.
“A lot of what I do is help the programs and the scientists that are running the public programs at CDC, I help translate into plain language the scientific discoveries and the information that people use in their everyday lives, so we work a lot on focusing on plain language in our communication that goes out to the public,” Walsh said. “To me, learning people skills and how people work has been really beneficial.”
Walsh said her undergraduate research project, under the direction of Melissa Himelein, was also a formative experience. “That whole process about doing research was really important, and at a bigger school I might not have had that kind of experience and hands-on mentorship from her,” Walsh said. “We still exchange Christmas cards every year.”
Like many during the pandemic, Walsh is working from home for the time being. Walsh said as she continues to work with the programs that are guiding people from so many different populations and backgrounds through this uncertain time, she remains hopeful.
“I think what gives me hope is that I personally know a lot of amazing, smart, dedicated people who are working so hard to keep the American people safe and healthy. I know it can seem scary and confusing right now, but I know there are people who are dedicated civil servants who are doing all the behind the scenes work, which people don’t necessarily get to see, but they’re working really hard and they’re dedicated and their life’s mission is to keep people safe and healthy,” Walsh said.
“I feel proud to work at this agency, and I feel hope that our science and our people are going to get us through this.”
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