Madison County Department of Health

The Madison County Department of Health promotes and protects the health of the community through assessment, education, and by ensuring necessary services. Working within a network of partners, they strive to meet the health needs of Madison County with integrity, professionalism, and respect.

Environmental Health Division

This summer, Allison Taylor, '09, is working with the Environmental Health Division to enhance the GIS capabilities of the department to track environmental health indicators. She will create a GIS database that will assist in the identification of environmental conditions that may impact public health and property. The creation of this database will allow the division to better identify and track these conditions, and map surveillance data that could be used for assessments to improve delivery of services and protect the health of county residents.

Community Health Assessment

Sabah Rabbi  worked with the Madison County Department of Health to complete a state mandated Community Health Assessment. Rabbi said that “the document I worked on as an Upstate Institute fellow served as an important empirical source both for the Department of Health and the Priorities Council to determine what areas need extra attention.”

The objective of the Community Health Assessment was to evaluate the health status and resources of Madison County in order to identify the priority areas for the next five years. The background data collected included demographic and social indicators, environmental health indicators, behavioral indicators, maternal and child health indicators, infectious disease indicators, data on access to health care, and an inventory of health resources in the community. Local data was compared to similar state and peer county indicators, as well as to data from a similar 1998 Madison County survey. Rabbi also notes that “in addition to being a comprehensive document, the Community Health Assessment report enabled me to enhance my analytical and research skills…I also learned to eyeball any anomalies in data and survey results which will benefit me in any future research.”