Essex County public health seeks national accreditation, cites GIS/AI and mobile clinics in preparedness push

Essex County Health Officer Maya Harlow told the Board of County Commissioners on Jan. 6 that the county’s Office of Public Health is pursuing national accreditation and expanding programs that use GIS mapping and predictive AI, mobile clinics and a volunteer medical reserve corps to improve emergency response and health equity.

Harlow said the accreditation work aims to increase accountability and transparency, improve quality of services, and strengthen emergency response capacity. “We are going for national accreditation. We will be only one of two counties in the state of New Jersey to have full national accreditation,” she told the commissioners.

The presentation summarized a community health assessment of more than 1,000 residents that identified chronic disease, behavioral and mental health and social determinants of health as priority areas. Harlow highlighted recent and ongoing programs run by the office: a Healthy Mondays toolkit deployed in Bloomfield schools, a community health alert and information network with more than 500 members, updated emergency plans, tabletop exercises with partners including the FBI and New Jersey State Police, and preparation for large events such as FIFA.

Harlow described technology and outreach efforts the office is using to target services. The health department has piloted GIS mapping (for example, lead hotspots in Bloomfield) and used five years of influenza data in a predictive AI model; the model suggested the highest infection rates in a recent analysis would occur in people aged 25–34, prompting a shift in outreach and clinic placement. She also said the county has a mobile health clinic that provided almost 1,400 screenings across 75 events in February 2024 and that the Vaccine for Children program administered more than 780 vaccines to 261 children in the county.

The health officer identified a 47-person medical reserve corps and said the department continues monthly preparedness exercises with municipalities and institutional partners. Harlow said updated planning documents include an ESF incident management plan, a regional distribution plan for supplies and a public information/ risk communications plan.

Commissioner Richardson praised the work and noted Bloomfield’s participation in pilot projects. No other commissioners raised questions after the presentation.

The health officer’s slide materials and the county’s community health assessment will be available through the Office of Public Health; Harlow and staff said they would provide further data on the predictive modeling on request.