DOVER, DE (OCT. 27, 2022) – As part of the Delaware State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP), the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) will conduct a series of community health assessments. The health assessments will help improve understanding of the health concerns and needs of Delaware communities and to improve the future health in Delaware. DPH has partnered with the University of Delaware’s Epidemiology Program and Partnership for Healthy Communities to survey each of Delaware’s three counties. Teams of students and community members will go door-to-door to canvas households in each county. The program will provide incentives for completed surveys. 

The dates for canvassing to begin by county are: 

• New Castle County – Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022 
• Kent County – Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022 
• Sussex County – Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023 

The community assessments are part of a broader and more comprehensive State Health Assessment (SHA) underway through 2023. It includes hosting community conversations across the state, gathering and analyzing existing data, and convening a collaborative coalition. 

“The State Health Assessment is the foundation for developing Delaware’s next SHIP,“ said DPH Interim Director Dr. Rick Hong. “This information will describe the health of Delaware’s population and identify areas for health improvement, contributing factors that impact health outcomes, and community assets and resources that can mobilize to improve Delaware’s health over the next five years.” 

“We are excited to support the Delaware SHIP and appreciate the opportunities for our students to apply their skills in gathering, analyzing, and presenting health information, said Dr. Jennifer Horney, founding director of the Epidemiology Program at the University of Delaware. “Whether canvassing neighborhoods with community residents, facilitating a community conversation, or working alongside diverse stakeholders as part of a statewide coalition, our students are learning the importance and value of a health assessment and improvement process aimed at involving the community, stakeholders, and partners each step along the way.” 

A State Health Improvement Plan is a long-term, systematic plan to address the public health issues identified in the State Health Assessment. It reflects the public health system and its strategic priorities, the state’s demographics, and the community makeup. A SHIP addresses the highest health priorities of a state’s population. These priorities cover various public health issues such as access to healthcare, infant mortality, obesity, and tobacco prevention. 

To learn more about Delaware’s State Health Improvement Plan, visit https://delawareship.org. 

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The Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH), a division of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, is a nationally accredited public health agency recognized by the Public Health Accreditation Board for its outstanding dedication to driving change through innovation. DPH is committed to improving the quality of the lives of Delaware’s citizens by promoting health and well-being, fostering self-sufficiency, and protecting vulnerable populations.  

A person who is deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf-blind or speech-disabled can call the DPH phone number above by using TTY services. Dial 7-1-1 or 800-232-5460 to type your conversation to a relay operator, who reads your conversation to a hearing person at DPH. The relay operator types the hearing person’s spoken words back to the TTY user. To learn more about TTY availability in Delaware, visit http://delawarerelay.com. 

DOVER, DE (MAY 13, 2022) – Today, Dr. Karyl Rattay is announcing that she will be leaving her role as Director of the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) effective June 30, 2022.  Dr. Rattay assumed her position in 2009, during the H1N1 influenza pandemic, and is the nation’s longest serving Public Health Director.

As Delaware’s State Health Official, Dr. Rattay leads nearly 1,000 employees who promote health, reduce health inequities, and protect Delawareans from disease, environmental hazards, and public health emergencies.

“It has been the greatest honor of my lifetime to serve Delawareans in this role, said Dr. Rattay. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have served under Governor Carney, and Governor Markell before him.  I could not be prouder of the DPH team and what we have accomplished together over the past 13 years.”

“When you work with someone through a crisis, you really see what they’re made of. Dr. Rattay is smart, steady, focused, and committed,” said Governor John Carney. Most importantly though, she is kind and compassionate. Her style of leadership and her work ethic are what helped Delaware make it through this pandemic. And the work Dr. Rattay did at Public Health in the decade leading up to the pandemic is why her team was ready and able to step up and manage this crisis. We will miss Dr. Rattay as a member of our team and I am personally grateful to her for all she did to lead us through this once-in-a-generation public health crisis.”

“In her 13 years as our Director of the Division of Public Health, Dr. Karyl Rattay has been driven by a singular focus: How could she and her team improve and protect the health and well-being of the Delawareans they serve,” said Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) Secretary Molly Magarik. “Her values, her work ethic and her passion for this work have never wavered. She believes in meeting communities where they are, listening to stakeholders across the spectrum, and building public health responses that are tailored to the populations we are serving. On behalf of the employees of DHSS and the people of Delaware, I offer my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Rattay her leadership, her innovative spirit, and her commitment to our state.”

Dr. Rattay says leading the state through the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two years – the greatest public health crisis in a century – has tested those in public health departments professionally and personally. She indicated that while she is not ready to announce her next role, she is excited about the new opportunities in front of her and believes this is a good time to transition the Division to its next leader.  

During her tenure at DPH Dr. Rattay and her team have:

• Succeeded in becoming one of the first 16 states in the nation to achieve and maintain full accreditation from the national Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB).
• Launched the State’s first Health Improvement Plan and multi-year agency strategic plans.
• Significantly reduced infant mortality rates by nearly 30% from 2015 -2019 through close collaboration with many maternal and child health partners, and a 25% reduction in unintended pregnancies through the Delaware Contraceptives Access Now (Delaware CAN) initiative.
• Saw a 14% reduction in cancer mortality rates through a comprehensive statewide prevention, screening, and treatment initiative.
• Worked with the legislature to pass a bill increasing the age to buy tobacco products to 21 and adding e-cigarettes to Delaware’s Clean Indoor Air Act.
• In conjunction with the University of Delaware and Delaware Community Foundation, spearheaded the creation of the Healthy Communities Delaware (HCD) initiative – a placed-based partnership with communities to address their most important social determinants of health.
• Played the state’s leading role in responding to multiple health threats, including COVID-19, H1N1, Superstorm Sandy, Ebola, Zika virus, Tuberculosis outbreaks and others.
• Launched the My Healthy Community data portal in 2019, bringing Delaware public health data down to the ZIP code level, including community characteristics, the environment, chronic disease, and mental health and substance use, air quality, asthma incidence data, public and private drinking water results, and drug overdose and death data. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Division of Public Health used My Healthy Community to report COVID-19 data, again down to the ZIP code level in many cases. It was one of the most robust COVID-19 data sites in the country.
• Assumed a leadership role in addressing the state’s opioid crisis.
• Added the Medical Marijuana Program in 2014 to administer medical marijuana cards for eligible Delawareans and to license and oversee compassion centers in all three counties.
• Added the Office of Animal Welfare in 2013 based on the recommendations of the General Assembly Animal Welfare Task Force as a way to consolidate and coordinate animal companion programs in Delaware

Dr. Rattay has earned multiple honors and awards. In 2019, she was awarded the prestigious Arthur T. McCormack Award by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) for her leadership and contributions as a state health official.  She also received the Vision of Peace award from the Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence; the Health Professional of the Year award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness; the President’s Award three times from former Medical Society of Delaware presidents; the Medal of Honor Award from atTAcK addiction and was honored by Governor Carney as the longest-serving state health official in the nation.

She has been named as one of “Delaware’s Most Influential” individuals for 2020 and 2021. Dr. Rattay chairs the Healthy Babies Subcommittee for ASTHO and is a Board member of ASTHO and the Public Health Foundation. She is the Chair of Delaware’s Addiction Action Committee, Co-Chair of the Overdose System of Care Committee, and a current member and former president of the Delaware Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline.

Dr. Rattay earned a Medical Doctorate from the Medical University of Ohio in 1992 and a Master of Science in Epidemiology from the University of Maryland in 2001. She completed her Pediatric Residency at Georgetown University and a Preventive Medicine and Public Health Residency training program at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Rattay is board-certified in pediatrics and practiced pediatrics for 14 years. Between September 2001 and June 2004, she served as a senior public health advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary of Health in the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Department of Health and Human Services, where she had a leadership role in the President’s Healthier U.S. Initiative. 

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 Anyone who is deaf, hard of hearing, Deaf-Blind or speech disabled can contact DPH by dialing 711 first using specialized devices (i.e., TTY, TeleBraille, voice devices). The 711 service is free and to learn more about how it works, please visit delawarerelay.com. 

 Delaware Health and Social Services is committed to improving the quality of the lives of Delaware’s citizens by promoting health and well-being, fostering self-sufficiency, and protecting vulnerable populations.

The public and health stakeholders are invited to engage in two virtual roundtables to further refine the 2020 State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) Progress Report. The annual SHIP report describes how the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) and the community it serves will work together to improve the health of Delaware’s population and the conditions that support health and well-being.

“The work of protecting and improving health in Delaware depends upon the collaboration and collective action of many public and private sectors, partners and stakeholders,” said DPH Director Dr. Karyl Rattay. “While the state health department has an important role to play and can provide guidance and data, we can only help Delawareans reach their optimal health when working with a broad and robust network of partners.”

Stakeholders and partners from government, non-profit, business, and community-based organizations/grassroots collectives within health and non-health sectors can use the State Health Improvement Plan report to set priorities, direct the use of resources, and develop and implement projects, programs and policies.

Hosted by DPH and the Partnership for Healthy Communities (PHC) at the University of Delaware (UD), the roundtables will be held on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.; and Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The virtual events will discuss the report findings and allow stakeholders to provide input. Although there is no fee to participate, advanced registration is required. For more details and to register, visit https://delawareship.org/upcoming-ship-events.

“We all have a role to play in working to improve the health outcomes of Delawareans, and the distribution of such outcomes in communities across our state,” said PHC Director Rita Landgraf. “Cross-sector collaborations, community engagement and partnerships are key.”

The SHIP has four priority areas: chronic disease, maternal and child health, substance use disorder, and mental health. The 2020 SHIP annual report provides an opportunity to assess progress and ensure that stakeholder activity is synergistic and aligned around recommendations from the 2018-2023 SHIP plan. As Delaware is mid-way through the five-year plan, this report highlights new and emerging evidence-based strategies and promising practices for population health improvement to be considered moving forward, while summarizing key activities already underway in Delaware. System-wide recommendations call for policy, systems and environmental change, strategies to address the social determinants of health, the promotion of health in all policies, and the incorporation of social marketing.

DPH and PHC will implement the State Health Improvement Plan. PHC will oversee the UD’s new SHIP Fellowship Program and provide structured opportunities for student engagement and scholarship to support SHIP stakeholders in planning, implementation, and refinement of the state plan. The SHIP Fellowship Program and this type of community-engaged scholarship for health will be especially timely for the state’s COVID-19 recovery.

The 2020 SHIP Annual Report is available at delawareship.org, which has updated resources and a new look.

DOVER – Today, the Division of Public Health (DPH), along with state and community partners, hosted its annual stakeholder meeting to discuss the Delaware State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) and present the 2019 annual SHIP report. The report serves as an update on progress made and identifies to what degree, DPH and its stakeholders and partners are aligned with the SHIP’s priority areas.

The purpose of the State Health Improvement Plan is to describe how DPH and the community it serves will work together to improve the health of Delaware’s population. Communities, stakeholders, and partners can use the SHIP to set priorities, direct the use of resources, and develop and implement projects, programs and policies. The SHIP’s four priority areas, identified through a State Health Needs Assessment (SHNA) process, are: chronic disease, maternal and child health, substance use disorder and mental health.

“The Delaware State Health Improvement Plan is more comprehensive than the roles and responsibilities of the health department alone, and depends on the participation of a broad set of community stakeholders and partners,” said DPH Director Dr. Karyl Rattay. “These community members have done an outstanding job to improve health by aligning efforts and investments in projects, programs and policies.”

The SHIP process follows a five-year action cycle; the most recent SHIP began in 2015 to 2016, with the needs assessment. Wednesday’s annual SHIP meeting brought together stakeholders for the first time since working on the assessment, and provided an opportunity for attendees to discuss progress made this past year, as well as identify gaps. The 2019 SHIP Report discusses which recommendations have the greatest degrees of alignment with stakeholder efforts, and where more work is needed. The 2019 SHIP Annual Report is available on DelawareSHIP.org, which has an updated resources section and an updated look.

The report shows that there is substantial alignment underway across each of the Delaware SHIP priority areas, with the greatest emphasis seen in the area of chronic disease. The greatest degree of alignment was observed in “making the healthy choice the easy choice”; the least amount of alignment is occurring around efforts to increase the number of Medicaid dental providers in underserved areas. In the area of maternal and child health, stakeholder groups are more aligned to promote health education and emphasize healthy parenting in schools than they are around efforts to incorporate graduated levels for health education in schools. In addressing substance use disorder, stakeholder groups are in strong alignment to reduce substance use disorders overall, and are particularly focused on opioid use disorder. Less alignment is seen around reducing tobacco and tobacco substitute use; however, the passage and signing of Senate Bill 25 in 2019, which raised the minimum age to buy tobacco and vape products from 18 to 21, is a sign of great progress.

In the area of mental health, stakeholders are most aligned around improving access to behavioral and mental health services, with less alignment found around providing each school with a trained mental health provider. However, efforts to help fund and/or expand these type of services are underway through the FY2020 state budget and federal grants. The needs assessment also determined that none of these recommendations can or should be implemented separately. To receive the biggest benefit, the Delaware SHIP recommends a policy, systems and environmental (PSE) approach. System-wide, stakeholders have promoted health in all policies, engaged in social marketing campaigns, and addressed social determinants of health.

In 2021, the SHIP’s partners will participate in another needs assessment, which will lead to the publication of the next SHIP in 2023.

Implementation of the SHIP project involves a collaboration between DPH, the Partnership for Healthy Communities at the University of Delaware and the Delaware Academy of Medicine/Delaware Public Health Association. Other stakeholder groups include hospitals, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), health-focused groups, coalitions, and research and education institutions. As part of the SHIP’s five-year action cycle, DPH conducts a periodic review process that helps the agency understand the needs of the community, identify gaps in services, and respond to emerging and continuous trends in health and well-being.

A person who is deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf-blind or speech-disabled can call the DPH phone number above by using TTY services. Dial 7-1-1 or 800-232-5460 to type your conversation to a relay operator, who reads your conversation to a hearing person at DPH. The relay operator types the hearing person’s spoken words back to the TTY user. To learn more about TTY availability in Delaware, visit http://delawarerelay.com.

The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services is committed to improving the quality of the lives of Delaware’s citizens by promoting health and well-being, fostering self-sufficiency, and protecting vulnerable populations. DPH, a division of DHSS, urges Delawareans to make healthier choices with the 5-2-1 Almost None campaign: eat 5 or more fruits and vegetables each day, have no more than 2 hours of recreational screen time each day (includes TV, computer, gaming), get 1 or more hours of physical activity each day, and drink almost no sugary beverages.