The Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Office of Local and Regional Health (DPH/OLRH) provides local public health officials in 351 towns and municipalities and two tribes with the resources, tools, and support needed to promote and protect the health and wellness of their communities. OLRH offers training and technical assistance to all health departments so they can respond to emergencies such as natural disasters and disease outbreaks, as well as coordinate the Commonwealth’s response to emergencies.
To support local public health departments in advancing health equity, OLRH will provide notification of professional development opportunities to educate and train governance, leadership, and workforce in culturally and linguistically appropriate policies and practices.
OLRH encourages all municipalities and tribal communities to provide comprehensive training, supervision, and ongoing discussion to support their staff in adopting DPH’s Strategic Plan to Advance Racial Equity. Additional information on hiring and training staff to meet CLAS Standards can be found in this Hiring section of this website.
These responsibilities are essential to ensuring the health and safety of communities, and include:
- Protecting the food supply through restaurant and other food establishment inspections.
- Conducting inspections and permitting of septic systems and other solid waste facilities.
- Monitoring and assessing health care and disease control, including timely reporting of and response to diseases that may be spread from person to person, occupational health and safety violations, food poisoning, and rabies.
- Conducting pool, beach, camp, hotel, and mobile home park inspections.
- Ensuring state lead poisoning regulations and sanitary codes in housing are enforced.
- Enforcing the state’s no-public-smoking law.
- Developing, testing, and building awareness of emergency preparedness plans for a wide range of hazards.
Local public health is also responsible for issuing burial permits, regulating pesticides, inspecting bodywork and tattoo parlors, and issuing health reports.
Local public health job positions or roles may include:
- Administrative Coordinator/Office Manager
- Inspector/Environmental Health Specialist/Sanitarian
- Management
- Public Health Nurse
- Health Equity and Outreach Coordinator/Manager
- Epidemiologist
- Social Worker
- Community Prevention and Education Coordinator/Manager
- Community Health Worker