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Jody Moesch Ebeling, RN, BSN, PHNC
Public Health Nursing Consultant
“Trying to encourage primary prevention in an acute care society is one of the biggest challenges of public health, but can be the most impactful.”
Jody Moesch Ebeling, Public Health Nursing Consultant at the WI Department of Health Services/Division of Public Health Northeast Regional Office has a rich background in public health nursing. This includes her current role of working with the Maternal Child Health and Tobacco Prevention and Control Programs as a public health nurse consultant. In this position, Jody provides technical assistance to local tobacco coalitions, ethnic networks and local public health agencies to assist with building leadership skills to develop local partnerships to assist in educating the public and community leaders on current tobacco issues, advocate for preventive tobacco measures, and to assure communities are addressing issues relating to infant and child mortality and morbidity.
Working with tobacco coalitions and community partners inspire Jody because of the difference that their work makes in the lives of others. An example of this was the July 5, 2010, passage of Wisconsin’s Smoke-Free Air Law. According to Jody, data collected indicates a very positive response to this legislation. Families can now enjoy outings without secondhand smoke. Workers are also indicating that they feel better and enjoy working in a smoke-free environment. Individuals claim that with the current tobacco related laws, they have decreased their tobacco consumption. She also shared that tobacco prevention and control efforts are focusing on strategies to decrease and prevent initiation of tobacco use by our state’s youth and other populations at risk.
Jody has found the work with the Tobacco Program to be particularly rewarding because of her personal experience of growing up in a family with members who were addicted to tobacco. Ten days after Wisconsin’s Smoke Free Air Law was passed on July 5, 2010, Jody’s father-in-law passed away due to a tobacco related illness. According to Jody, he was comforted to know that the law was in place to protect family members from having to suffer from a similar preventable disease.
When Jody was a nursing student at UW-Milwaukee, she was assigned to the Milwaukee Health Department for her public health clinical experience. This was an eye opening experience having grown up in Green Bay. Learning about public health nursing in a large urban community provided opportunities to meet people of different cultures and backgrounds. What impressed her most was the close knit atmosphere of the community.
After graduating from nursing school, the job market was tight. Jody was pleased to begin her career as a public health nurse with the City of Green Bay Health Department. In this position she had the opportunity to work with refugee families. This required the ability to advocate for clients. One example included working with a Hmong family which had a seriously ill little girl who was hospitalized due to a high fever. The family was reluctant for the child to receive treatment from the pediatrician. After advocating for the family, the pediatrician agreed to allow a Shaman to visit the child in the hospital. This allowed trust to be built. As a result, the family agreed for the child to be treated by the pediatrician with modern medicine.
Jody also worked in Brown County as a public health nurse. While working at Brown County, she was approached to help implement the Wisconsin Diabetes Care Guidelines in the county. In the planning phase, Jody worked with her supervisor to implement a strategy to bring local partners together to implement and promote the new guidelines to promote quality diabetes care. After a town hall meeting, a coalition was formed, a community grant was obtained, and the Diabetes Care Guidelines were implemented at the county level. Jody states this was the beginning of her work in nursing with a population\system focus which brought her to her current position.
The Policy Development Toolkit authored by the Northeastern Regional Learning Collaborative (NEWLEAP) Policy Workgroup to address the public health nursing competency of policy development, is one of projects that Jody is most proud of. She believes nurses are experts and are a reputable resource to address public health policy. Public health nurses have a broad understanding of population health and the underlying determinants of health. It was a fun and challenging project to clarify and define different views on what is public health policy and how it differs from developing policies and procedures. The workgroup wanted to make the toolkit useful so that others would see their role in advocating for healthier environments where people live, work, play, and learn. The toolkit was a collaboration of several community based nursing partners (Department of Public Instruction, Academia, Practice Partners, and State Department of Health Services). It gave the workgroup an opportunity to address a shift from an intense individual focus to population/systems focus practice that have high impact and cost saving outcomes.
The most rewarding part of Jody’s career has been working with different disciplines to address health and identifying unique, creative ways to address critical public health issues. This was apparent when she worked to advocate for those with developmental disabilities. Transportation for this population is an issue. While working with The Wisconsin Division of Elder and Disabled Services, Jody partnered with a regional planning agency and local public and private transportation agencies to obtain a grant from the Department of Transportation to assess and coordinate transportation needs of those with developmental disabilities. This was accomplished by attending regional town hall meetings and assisting in a regional summit focusing on access to transportation and its effects of the health status of disparate populations. The outcome of these efforts was a regional coalition to address multi-jurisdictional transportation needs. Those involved included regional and local planners, private cabs, municipal transportation, sheltered workshops, assisted living representatives, high schools, and a school of nursing with the purpose of encouraging the development of a regional transit authority to assist with boundary limitations on transportation access
When asked what advice she would have for those looking to work in public health, Jody stated, “You are not going to get rich working in public health, but the life experiences will be very rich. Working with diverse populations, and in a non-structured environment are great. Public health is a calling. It’s not easy. You are not going to see a lot of immediate rewards, but you will be richly rewarded with partnerships and blessed with experiences. Respecting other beliefs and the development of life skills is important. There is value in diversity.” Jody also adds that, “Linking academia and practice partners is important. It can help students by giving them a real life picture of partnerships and it broadens their view of nursing and health. This may open another door or option in nursing that they may not have considered prior to a clinical experience in public health.”
In the future Jody plans on continuing to look for opportunities to partner with other non-traditional partners, collaborate with others to address critical and future health issues. She will continue to focus on practicing a healthy lifestyle to be a good role model for others.
- LEAP Spotlight submitted by Tracy Mrochek and the LEAP Staff
