John Nordlund

Arkansas Department of Health

Arkansas Department of Health's (ADH) mission is to protect and improve the health and well-being of all Arkansans. ADH provides more than 100 services statewide and employs over 2,000 public health professionals. ADH is a unified public health department with its main central office in Little Rock and 94 local health units in each of the State's 75 counties.  The Agency is broken down into Centers that oversee various Branches, Programs, Boards & Commissions.  The Center for Health Advancement is made up of branches for Chronic Disease, Tobacco Prevention and Cessation, Family Health, Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and Oral Health. The Center for Health Protection has branches for Infectious Disease, Preparedness and Emergency Response, Health Systems and Injury Prevention. The Center for Local Public Health is at the heart of the department. Our local health units provide services in all communities across the State. Our Hometown Health Improvement Initiative is a process that takes a close look at the issues in local communities. It is coordinated through our local health units in partnership with community stakeholders. Through this collaboration, health strategies are developed and implemented to improve these local health issues. The Center for Public Health Practice includes branches for Health Statistics and Epidemiology, our "disease detectives" who track the spread of communicable diseases like mumps, measles and chicken pox. The Public Health Laboratory tests and reports on samples from all over the state – water, soil, human, and animal to name a few. The PHLab is a state-of-the-art laboratory prepared to handle outbreaks like a pandemic flu or any bioterrorist event.  Supporting the various service programs and employees across the State is the Administrative Services departments including finance, human resources, ITS legal, minority health, community support, communications and marketing, policies & procedures and facility manage