Dear LA County Community,  

BARBARA FERRER PhD, MPH, MEd
DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
DECEMBER, 2019

As 2019 comes to a close, I want to thank everyone who partnered with Public Health for your dedication and commitment to advance justice and equity in Los Angeles County. We have been blessed this year with outstanding leadership from the Board of Supervisors, our workforce, county department partners, our unions, community leaders, and residents. Collectively, we formed powerful alliances that brought about policy and practice changes in communities, workplaces and schools.

Throughout the year, your efforts helped ensure that residents have the opportunities and resources needed for well-being and good health. Here are just a few highlights from our work together this past year.

• We worked with many of you to promote a "care first, jail last" model for our most vulnerable residents who are often refugees from failed social and economic systems.
• Together, we established the LA County Office of Violence Prevention where community organizations and county departments can implement efforts that eliminate violence in our neighborhoods schools, workplaces, homes and relationships.

• This month, we opened 34 of our 50 Wellbeing Centers at high schools across the county so that students can build their leadership skills, make good choices, and have opportunities to receive support from their peers and caring adults.
• Many of you helped us respond to outbreaks, and with your assistance, we were able to contain and prevent further transmission of communicable diseases such as mumps, measles, and flea-borne typhus.
• Community environmental justice leaders led efforts where we partnered to prevent and mitigate the devastating consequences of exposures to known chemical hazards.
• And we all worked hard to address the crisis facing 59,000 people experiencing homelessness by expanding services, realigning resources, and intensifying efforts to prevent people from dying on our streets.

While much work remains for us to do in 2020 and the years ahead, a strong foundation has been laid that fosters innovative practices and bold policy changes in a culture of learning and respect. I am so proud to be part of this wonderful Angelino family and am grateful that, together, we will strive to end oppression, discrimination, and violence.

Thank you once again for your partnership, and I wish you a wonderful holiday celebrating with your family and community.

Barbara