Frontline worker

Alli (Campbell) Nelson wasn’t sure what she’d be doing for work.

The short-term position she had planned to take last summer in Jay County fell through. She ended up looking for opportunities in the Lafayette area, where she planned to move with her now-husband Devin. She hadn’t even considered anything in Indianapolis because of the travel.

But when one of her University of Indianapolis professors forwarded an opportunity to become an Indiana State Department of Health public health investigator, a job that would involve mostly remote work, she decided to apply. She wasn’t hired for that position, but when the need arose for a health education specialist, one of the state department of health supervisors remembered her from the previous interview.

So, for the last six months, the 2017 Jay County High School graduate has been contracted through the state department of health as a health education specialist working on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Project Firstline.

“I didn’t get the position that I applied for, but I think I ended up getting the position that I fit more well into as a health educator because I really do want to focus on health education with my degree,” said Nelson.

And she took the first steps of her young career in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.

“It’s definitely been interesting,” she said of the situation while noting that her job is not focused on COVID-19 but rather on infection prevention in general. “It’s somewhat challenging, because people hear I’m at the state department of health and they think I’m going to have answers to everything COVID related, and honestly nobody … has all the answers because it’s still developing and we’re researching and finding new things out. But it’s definitely been a great learning experience.”

Nelson went to the University of Indianapolis with the intention of becoming an occupational therapist, looking forward to working with patients one-on-one. After taking some introductory courses in public health, though, she saw an opportunity to make a larger impact.

She admitted that, like many, she didn’t know much about the vast public health field and what opportunities it offered.

"I think probably the thing that drew me the most was just prevention and being able to help people,” Nelson said. “I’ve known for a long time I wanted to be in a profession where I felt like I was helping people and making a difference.”

While continuing to pursue her master’s degree through the University of Indianapolis, Nelson’s work with the state department of health is focused on Project Frontline. It’s an effort to stop the spread of infectious disease threats, including COVID-19, specifically in healthcare facilities.

As part of that effort, the CDC is producing 11 training modules for those in the healthcare field as refreshers, which is especially important, Nelson said, because protocols are frequently being updated. Plans also call for she and a second educator to offer training sessions throughout the state by summer 2022 and to host a two-day training event in Indianapolis in May 2022.

In the first six months, her job focused mostly on preparation and coordinations. Working remotely, she’s been compiling distribution lists to make sure the training information gets to healthcare professionals, establishing partnerships with organizations such as Indiana State Nursing Association and Indiana American Academy of Pediatrics, and working on contracts with various organizations that are part of the effort.

Nelson also gets regular updates on her own training.

“As health educators we also go through a lot of infection and prevention control training so we can stay up to date and have knowledge over the material,” she said.

The rollout of Project Firstline is already underway, with some resources and training modules available at cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/projectfirstline.

Nelson’s is on a two-year, CDC grant-funded contract through the state department of health. She said she’s not sure where her career will take her after that, but that the pandemic has illustrated the importance of public health jobs and the impact they can make.

“I think usually public health workers are kind of behind the scenes, so you don’t really notice they’re there until you need them,” she said. “So I think one thing about the pandemic is people are now understanding and realizing what public health is and why we should give it funding and why we need a strong public health workforce …”