The January 2024 Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, From Pandemic to Epidemic: Lessons Learned From COVID-19 Applied to Mpox Outbreak Response, Westchester County, Metropolitan New York featured Westchester Community Health Center (WCHC)’s response to the COVID-19 and Mpox pandemics.
WCHC CEO Judith Watson and other healthcare leaders in Westchester County participated in an 8-month study by the Westchester County Department of Health on how the COVID-19 pandemic vaccination infrastructure was redeployed to address the Mpox epidemic. The study was later published in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, WCHC operated the only walk-through testing center in Westchester County, which was later expanded into a vaccination site. The medical expertise, community outreach, and community relationships that enabled WCHC to successfully roll out the COVID-19 vaccine to underrepresented populations were later used to address the Mpox epidemic in the summer of 2022.
Said CEO Judith Watson, one of the authors of the published study, “We are proud to contribute to the body of knowledge that will influence public policy on pandemic response and especially address challenges in public health vaccine rollouts.”