Burnout is just another word for Extinguish: Perspectives on Public Health Workforce Wellbeing

Long before the 2020-2022 U.S. COVID-19 pandemic strike, “the National Academy of Medicine found that healthcare worker burnout had reached ‘crisis levels’ among the U.S. healthcare workforces.”?A 2021 study of healthcare worker burnout found that more than half of healthcare workers reported symptoms of occupational distress including insomnia, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, or other mental health challenges.

In Local Health Departments (LDH)s, COVID-19 response created an opportunity to highlight the strengths of local healthcare systems to adapt, stand up large-scale testing and vaccination centers, and manage complex infectious disease data to inform policy and the public. LHDs also hired and trained thousands of temporary community healthcare workers to support the work under intense public pressure. In many regards, the experience of the 2020 pandemic response at LHDs brought to the foreground the abilities of our community healthcare system to rapidly expand the public health workforce and improve the quality/quantity of community partnerships.

But, the Covid-19 pandemic has also changed the nature and relationship workers across economic sectors have with their employers. In this sense LHDs have been the canary in the coal mine for our healthcare system. Employees leave local health departments at staggering 20% annual average attrition rate, unfettered by large retention bonuses. Some 52% of nurses (according to the American Nurses Foundation) and 20% of doctors (Mayo Clinic Proceedings) say they are planning to leave their clinical practice. Combining the attrition with an overall shortage; the US Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts a shortage of over a million Registered Nurses in the next year, and a gap of over three million low wage healthcare workers over the next three.?The coming strain on local systems will be difficult to overcome.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines burnout, the driving force for worker exists, as an occupational syndrome characterized by a high degree of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and a low sense of personal accomplishment at work. Burnout manifests on an individual level but the cause is systemic.

Vital in combatting burnout, the post-pandemic era is an opportunity to rethink how LHDs can protect workers from harm, foster a sense of connection among workers, show employees they matter, make space for their lives outside work, and support their long-term professional growth. In the 2022 U.S. Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health & Well-Being, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy notes that the process “may not be easy. But it will be worth it, because the benefits will accrue for both workers and organizations. A healthy workforce is the foundation for thriving organizations and a healthy community.”