Wyoming

Wyoming’s public health system

Public health infrastructure within Wyoming consists of the Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) in Cheyenne, two county health departments directed by Boards of Health, and 29 public health nursing offices covering 23 counties. Public health preparedness planning at the State level is managed by the WDH Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program (PHEPP) and at the local level through the WDH Public Health Nursing Program.

Supported by Wyoming's PHEPP Cooperative Agreement, individual contracts between the 23 county governments are established to create county-level Public Health Response Coordinator (PHRC) positions. Responsibilities of the PHRCs include, but are not limited to, writing local public health preparedness and response plans, providing assistance to the WDH during disease outbreak investigations, and fostering professional working relationships with local emergency planning committees, law enforcement agencies, healthcare providers, and political figures. The PHRCs are supervised by the local state-employed nursing manager and are under the direction of the state's Public Health Nursing program.

NWCPHP activities in Wyoming

NWCPHP works actively with public health colleagues in Wyoming around specific training activities, assisting with the development and implementation of a workforce development strategy and the application of learning management systems and distance learning technology to workforce development activities.

• May 2008: WDH conducted the Wyoming Leadership Development Workshop, 47 attendees, in Lander.
• August 2007: University of Wyoming conducted the annual Evidence-Based Practice course in Laramie.
• August 2007: WDH sponsored 6 attendees at the NWCPHP Summer Institute.
• August 2006: 18 public health participants attended the NWCPHP Summer Institute.
• August 2005: Assistant Director of NWCPHP worked with the University of Wyoming faculty to provide follow-on sessions for an Evidence-Based Practice course held at the Wyoming Public Health Summer Institute. These continuation sessions are held via iLinc Web conferencing. NWCPHP provides technical support/training on iLinc software.
• May 2004: NWCPHP faculty, Dennis Stillman, taught a one-day workshop on Public Health Leadership.
• May 2004: Annual Wyoming Public Health Summer Institute, Laramie. May 18-20, 2004, NWCPHP has worked closely with the WDH in designing an assessment tool, analyzing survey data, and producing a statewide training needs assessment report entitled A Training Assessment of the Public Health Workforce on Bioterrorism and Emergency Readiness: State of Wyoming. This report summarizes statewide results from 879 public health workers, first responders, and mental health workers across the state.
• 2003/2004: NWCPHP's HRSA grant assisted Wyoming in offering a broad range of public health and emergency preparedness training at four training events attended by 234 trainees across the state.
• 2002: Faculty and staff have participated in and presented at the annual Wyoming Public Health Summer Institutes since 2002.
• March 2004: The final report on training needs assessment was completed.
• March 2002: NWCPHP staff collaborated with the Wyoming DOH to present the 2nd Annual Public Health Core Functions and Essential Services Training.
• Wyoming representatives from both state and local levels have participated in the Northwest Summer Institute since 2002.

Wyoming contacts

Nancy Jo Ilminen
Education and Training Coordinator
Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program
Wyoming Department of Health

Chris Bosselman
Human Resources Officer
Office of the Director
Wyoming Department of Health

NWCPHP also maintains a strong partnership with the University of Wyoming and undertakes collaborative planning and implementation of workforce development activities with the University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Department of Health.

Other Wyoming links

Wyoming State Department of Health

Consumer Health Services of the Department of Agriculture

All-Hazards Response Program - Wyoming Department of Health

Wyoming in brief

Wyoming’s total population is about 494,000 people. The largest city in Wyoming is Cheyenne with a population of about 53,000. The state has two small urbanized city/county areas but is largely comprised of small towns and rural/frontier areas. The 2000 US Census classified 34.8% of Wyoming’s population as rural and 74.5% as non-urbanized.

There is one Indian reservation in Wyoming, the Wind River Reservation, with headquarters at Fort Washakie. The reservation is the home of some 2,357 Shoshone and 3,501 Arapaho Indians. The US Census reports that American Indians comprise 1.6% of the state’s population.