Gary Cox, JD, Director, Oklahoma City-County Health Department
As a seasoned public health official, Gary Cox looks at the health of his community, and its future, from the inside-out. "Health happens at a local level. Only about 10% of our health occurs in the doctor's office. However, it is our everyday regular activities, in our communities and schools and neighborhoods, and with our local public health department, where our health primarily occurs. We rely on our knowledge from research and prevention to continue to keep our health in our daily lives and communities, and out of the doctor's office."
Throughout his well-accomplished career, Gary Cox, JD, has worn many hats in the field of public health. He assumes his current position over the Oklahoma City-County Health Department after a 14 year standing as the Tulsa City Health Council Director, and holds leadership and advisory roles in leading foundations and organizations that seek to protect and improve the health and health equity of all people and communities nationally, and to facilitate access to care for all Americans. His expertise includes shaping and influencing policy, identifying appropriate and effective strategies to implement the knowledge gained from research into real-time public health law and practice. Cox has already started preserving the value of this knowledge and experience in the next generation of public health heroes as a professor of public health at the University of Oklahoma.
Cox is helping to train the next generation of public health researchers and workers from the moment they begin their learning in the field. As one of the first such programs of its kind, Cox and his colleagues at the University of Oklahoma School of Public Health have developed a model program as part of a unique partnership with the Oklahoma State Health Department, Tulsa City County Health Department, Oklahoma City County Health Department, University School of PH
for students entering the field of public health and research where they are required to develop a real-time public health emergency scenario and implement it, giving them first-hand experience for real-time emergencies in their future career. The students are required to put together teams and assume different roles based on their public health response to the community, elected officials, news media. "We have received lot of positive response from students - from hiring and working with them they could begin doing the job right away and were quite prepared. We have had a number of students said this course really brought together academic and theoretical components of all aspects of public health, including now a practical practice perspective. This is a real benefit in the public health system to our local communities through training our current and future public health workforce."
"Research is important in the public health practice - especially with the scarce dollars that we have - it's important to invest money in research programs that have been effective in improving public health outcome. Research is critical because you can prove where you are allocating your resources in these scarce economic times. It is critically important to make those investments in things that have been proven to work. It is important with local funders, taxpayers and legislators if they are going to put money in public health programs to show accountability by demonstrating how we are investing those funds, and showing that it has a payback in improving health outcome and overall, that the money is being spent well. Accountability is very important to us."