MOUNT VERNON — One hundred years of public health organization and service enjoyed by Ohioans, including Knox County residents, was celebrated Thursday as Knox County Commissioners Teresa Bemiller and Bill Pursel signed a proclamation recognizing next week as National Public Health Week. Local health departments statewide will be celebrating a century of public health with a campaign theme, “How the past has made public health matter.”
Next week will mark the 100th anniversary of two legislative acts — both enacted in 1919 — that shaped the future of public health in Ohio. The Hughes Act and Griswold Act established the modern-day organization of local health departments, and created a foundation to build upon for public health efforts still in effect today.
The Hughes-Griswold Act eliminated village and township units and based local health administration in cities and counties. Knox County operated with a city health department in Mount Vernon and a separate county health department for decades. Then, in 1983, the two entities combined to form the Knox County General Health District, otherwise known as the Knox County Health Department, which celebrated National Public Health Accreditation in 2018. The county Health Department is currently led by Health Commissioner Julie Miller, who was on hand Thursday and will celebrate her ninth year in her position in September.
Three long-time county health officials joined Bemiller and Pursel on Thursday to celebrate 100 years of public health inside the Knox County Service Center and commissioners’ meeting room, witnessing the proclamation signing for National Public Health Week. One was Edward Bowlus, 94, a retired veterinarian from Fredericktown. He served on the county health board for 25 years from 1982 to 2007, 17 of those years as president. Bowlus was in his first year of health board membership with the Knox County Health Department and city of Mount Vernon Health Department joined to form a Health District. Another health official on hand Thursday was Lee Rhoades, a retired Mount Vernon City Schools principal who succeeded Bowlus as county health board president in 2007, and still serves on the board. Rhoades called Bowlus “my mentor.” They were joined by Mount Vernon Mayor Richard Mavis, who was a county commissioner when the city and county health departments merged in 1983. There were trust issues in those times, as both entities had discussed merging as far back as the 1950s, Palm said, but held off because county residents believed they might have to pay for health services enjoyed by city residents. Mavis helped lead the charge to build trust and unite county health operations into one district.
Before the proclamation was read into the record by Bemiller, Bowlus joked to Miller about his health, “I’m going to live to be 100, and then I’m going to be real careful.”
Miller noted that 154 separate city and county health departments when she began working for Knox County Health Department 25 years ago has decreased to just 113 departments through consolidation. The Marietta and Belpre health departments in southern Ohio are the most recent to merge, which is a good thing overall as resources are shared and costs are saved through elimination of some duplicating of functions.
“I think it’s been a beneficial thing,” she said of the consolidations. “It’s just hard politically sometimes to get people to understand the benefits (of merging departments).”
Palm pointed to the positive impact of public health in the 100 years since the Hughes-Griswold Acts were enacted: People are living an average of 25 years longer; smallpox, once a common, deadly occurrence, has been eradicated; motor vehicle fatalities have declined 90 percent, and deaths from sudden infant death syndrome have declined by half. Accomplishments in public health have included mass immunizations for children and adults, control of infectious diseases, reduction of tobacco use, safer and healthier foods, and maternal and infant health care, increased preventative screenings, and public health preparedness and response.
