The city's health director plays a number of important roles in the community.
Those can range from working with other agencies through the Healthy Gloucester Collaborative to teaming up with emergency services and getting word out to the public regarding a potential health crisis — like the three-week boil-water order of 2009.
But new city Health Director Noreen Burke brings added expertise to the table from her previous position in Somerville, where she served as head of the city's Human Rights Commission and then, more recently, as public health director.
To that end, Burke noted that she views public health through a larger, "human rights" lens. That means advocating for and ensuring that all residents of the city have equal access to good public health — regardless of the kind of house in which they live, which schools the children may attend, or what kind of food families can afford. And she said she's taken her first weeks in town to learn Gloucester's social and economic nature, and how that affects the health of its residents.
Burke, who came on board last month, says she doesn't yet have any new initiatives for the city's Health Department at this point, other than to focus on the Get Fit Gloucester project and other efforts the department is already coordinating. But her background already suggests that she's aware and committed to tackling the preventive health and health care needs of all Gloucester residents. And that's a good calling card.
We welcome her to Gloucester, and wish her nothing but the best.
