Public Health is the practice of disease detection and prevention in populations. It is the science and art of protecting and improving the health of the communities through educating providers and the public, promoting healthy health lifestyles, and detecting and preventing the causes of disease and injury.
Public health works to prevent costly and complex health problems before they occur. Supporting local and public health supports economic development and potential for improvements in other areas that are important to community resilience. GVPH accomplishes its mission through collaboration with local partners and works to anticipate, identify, and meet the needs of our community
Funding for Granville Vance Public Health, including this website, is provided by County, State, and Federal governments, and grants from private foundations. This website does not accept or host any advertisements.
Granville County Health Department and Vance County Health Department became Granville-Vance District Health Department on April 1, 1974. At the time of the merger each county health department had approximately 20 employees offering core public services (Child Health, Maternal Health, Family Planning, Communicable Disease, Immunization, Environmental Health, WIC, and Health Education/Promotion), as well as Home Health and an orthopedic clinic.
In 2015, Granville-Vance District Health Department rebranded itself and is now referred to as Granville Vance Public Health. Today, Granville Vance Public Health employs approximately 70 staff across the two counties and is still providing the core public health services along with several other programs that are important to the community, including Primary Care, Care Management for Children and Pregnant Women, Dental, Minority Diabetes Prevention, CenteringPregnancy(R), and Opioid Use Disorder programs such as Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) and Naloxone.
Those thoughts align precisely with the work we must lead in communities across the Northern Piedmont of NC: Systems Thinking, System Change, Quality Improvement, Innovation, and the Science and Art of public health practice at its best is what we lead. That means our work changes over time and, if were paying attention, the way we prioritize and pay for our work does too.
How do we do this big work and stay committed to being real? We depend on a skilled and talented workforce who cares a great deal about friends and neighbors. We depend on partners in the community who also do really good work to address the economic development, education, transportation, food security, and housing of the population we also serve, and we depend on many levels and types of funding sources to keep the lights on, the computers networked, and the people trained to keep moving forward with skill and talent. We plan. We do. We study. We act. We care a great deal.
A local health department in NC depends on funding from local, state, and federal levels, and still, in rural NC, that is barely enough to cover half of an operating budget for a local health department. We are charged with being creative and responsible for funding the interventions and programs most important to our local residents by writing and managing grants, by partnering with local health systems and businesses, and by applying business practices that add efficiencies, cut costs, and pay attention to revenue even though our values are very much people-focused over profit. We have to be smart and tenacious, honest and transparent, and we have to communicate well about our challenges and successes alike.
Please take a look through our web site and see all that public health does were certainly more than just a clinic that provides flu shots we love fighting disease and we know how to do that well, but we do so much more to protect and promote health. We invite you to find out more and be in touch with us. Were here for you. Thank you for your support of this local health department and its people.