Georgia public health board goes seventh straight month without meeting

Caption

Georgia Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey speaks August 20 at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.

Credit: Rebecca Grapevine / Healthbeat

For the seventh month in a row, the board of the Georgia Department of Public Health will not hold a meeting this month.

The board last met in September. At that meeting, board chair Dr. Jim Curran criticized changes to federal vaccine policy under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And the board discussed how to handle the distribution of COVID shots.

The board was next scheduled to meet in November but canceled. A notice on its website said it would “announce the date of the next board meeting after the first of the year.” No new meeting date has been posted.

DPH manages a $933 million budget and nearly 6,000 state and county public health employees. State law says the board should “establish the general policy” of the DPH, but lists no other specific responsibilities.

Georgia’s open meetings law requires state agency and board meetings to be “held in accordance with a regular schedule,” though the law doesn’t define “regular,” and meetings can be canceled or postponed.

“I find it appalling that the state health system hasn’t met since September,” said Richard T. Griffiths, former president of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.

“By not meeting and abdicating their responsibility, they are suggesting that there are no issues, no problems in Georgia,” Griffiths said. “You only have to look at things like maternal health to understand why it’s disappointing to see this board not meeting.”

Only about three-fourths of Georgia women receive adequate prenatal care, and the March of Dimes gave Georgia an “F” for its high pre-term birth rate. Rates of maternal mortality and morbidity in Georgia are higher for Black women than the general population.

The board will meet to review 2026 legislative developments and vote on a bond resolution, said DPH spokesperson Nancy Nydam Shirek, but a date has not been set.

More frequent meetings would help the agency take a proactive approach, “which is preferred for public health,” said Stacie Kershner, deputy director of the Center for Law, Health and Society at the Georgia State University College of Law.

Nydam Shirek said the board does not have “statutory authority” over DPH’s everyday work and serves generally “in an advisory capacity.”

She added that board members have communicated with DPH about “emerging issues in the communities where they live and work,” including COVID, congenital cytomegalovirus (an infection that can cause hearing loss in babies), and maternal mortality.

Sidney Barrett, who served as the general counsel for the agency for nine years, said there could be many reasons for the lack of regular meetings and it’s not necessarily a bad sign. He said he has full confidence in Commissioner Kathleen Toomey and believes board members have “clear channels of communication” with her.

Board meetings may not necessarily be the best or only way to build trust with the public, said Darlene Huang Briggs, an attorney at the Public Health Law Network who has looked at how states structure public health systems.

“The health department should be responsive and accountable to the public that it serves,” Huang Briggs said. “The ways to do that may be better communication, better transparency to data that they use to make decisions, even just better understanding of what the health department even does.”

The board’s lack of meetings stands in contrast to other health agencies’ regular board meetings – as well as its own past record. After falling off during the pandemic, the DPH board met 10 times in 2022 and seven times in 2023.

State law requires each board of the 159 county health departments to meet at least quarterly. The Fulton County Board of Health met Wednesday to discuss how the agency is preparing for the influx of global visitors to Atlanta for the upcoming World Cup, which raises the threat of infectious outbreaks, including measles.

The boards of Georgia’s three other health agencies also meet routinely.

For example, the board of the Department of Community Health has met each month this year. Last year, it met 13 times. DCH meetings typically include votes on regulations and updates on programs, budgets, audits, and state and federal policy.

The board of the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities has met once this year, with five more meetings scheduled for the rest of the year. Last year, it met six times. The meetings often include routine business, updates on programs, presentations from people working in mental health in Georgia, and comments from the public.

The board of the Department of Human Services meets quarterly and has held two meetings this year, with two more scheduled. It met five times last year. The meetings include updates from each program within the agency, typically with data, among other routine business.

As with other health agencies, DPH board members are appointed by the governor for three-year terms. They are not paid for their service, but receive small stipends.

Georgia law says the governor can remove members for “inability or neglect to perform the duties required of members,” among other reasons.

Curran, the current board chair, did not respond to a phone call and emails requesting comment.

“Why do we have boards where people agree to serve the public if they’re not going to do their job in serving the public by providing the overall policy and direction for the state Department of [Public] Health?” Griffiths said.

Rebecca Grapevine is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Rebecca at rgrapevine@healthbeat.org. This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Healthbeat.