Department of Health

Work alongside employees of the Niagara County Department of Health and receive guidance by a University at Buffalo expert in epidemiology and environmental health, who will support you with weekly informal feedback.

Understand the Health Department’s Workings

With this rotation, we aim to help you apply principles of health promotion and disease and injury prevention to a community population. We have designed this rotation to help you understand the roles and functions of the health department and its relationship with other health and human service agencies.

In our program, we’re committed to helping you reach your career goals. On the first day of the rotation, we’ll ask you to identify specific objectives you hope to accomplish by the end of the rotation — and our on-site supervisor will support you in your pursuit of these goals.

Our training will help you to:

  • describe relevant local and state laws, regulations and public health codes germane to the health department 
  • understand principles of risk assessment and exposure
  • promote and conduct community-based health screenings, as well as adult immunizations
  • understand the health department’s disease and risk surveillance data systems
  • participate in community emergency preparedness exercises 
  • learn how to investigate potential hazard to the health of a population
  • outline a process of toxic and hazardous substance abatement and cleanup within the local community 

You may also learn about superfund sites in the local community.

Improve the Community’s Health

Are you interested in developing a proposal for an intervention to improve the health of the community? Do you want to learn to develop materials to educate and communicate health risks? You may have opportunities to gain those skills during this rotation. 

Additionally, you can gain experience using information technology, online databases and existing databases to assess the overall health of the population — and we’ll help you apply that knowledge to develop programs to reduce health risks. By the end of this rotation, you should feel comfortable identifying and coordinating the integrated use of available resources to improve community health.

You will identify ethical, social and cultural issues relating to policies, risks, research, communication and interventions in public health and preventive medicine contexts. 

Length of Rotation

Your rotation will be for two months.

Training Site

Faculty

This rotation is overseen by:

Victoria Ann Pearson, MBA

Deputy Public Health Director / Director Financial Operations

5467 Upper Mt. Road, Lockport, NY 14094

Phone: (716) 439-7432

Email: vpearson@buffalo.edu