Get to Know the Cambridge Public Health Department this National Public Health Week

This week, April 7 – 13, 2025, marks National Public Health Week. Now more than ever, it’s important to recognize and promote the work of public health. 

Public health covers a wide spectrum, focusing on the health of all people and their communities. In Cambridge, the Cambridge Public Health Department (CPHD) protects and promotes the health of everyone in the city, particularly those who are most vulnerable, through services, information, policies, and regulations. 

The mission of CPHD is to improve the quality of life for all who live, learn, work, and play in the city by preventing illness and injury; encouraging healthy behaviors; and ensuring safe and healthy environments.

This means tracking and monitoring diseases in our community. In fiscal year 2024, CPHD’s clinical staff investigated 189 cases of diseases, which included foodborne illnesses, respiratory illnesses, and tick-borne illnesses. CPHD, along with its partners, held 19 vaccine clinics in the community, administering 1,830 COVID-19 vaccines, 1,840 flu vaccines, and 128 other routine vaccinations. 

CPHD’s Population Health Initiatives Division is active in the community, learning the needs of the people in Cambridge and creating programming that addresses these needs and encourages healthy behaviors. This unit promotes early literacy and parental support; healthy eating and active living; youth wellness; mental and behavioral health and substance use prevention.

CPHD works directly in Cambridge Public Schools to help students live healthier lives so they can reach their academic potential. During the 2023-2024 school year, school health nurses and staff performed 31,385 student visits for illness, injury, medication administration, and medical procedures. They also performed 4,015 vision screenings and 3,011 hearing screenings. The Cambridge Healthy Smiles Program reaches over 1,800 Cambridge Public Schools students each year by providing free oral health education and dental screenings to all first, third, sixth, and ninth grade students. 

CPHD also strives to protect people’s health by making Cambridge’s indoor and outdoor environments safer. CPHD’s Environmental Health Division focuses on a wide range of topics including rat control efforts, monitored tick-and mosquito-borne diseases, safe henkeeping practices, improving indoor air quality, and biosafety. In addition, CPHD focuses on ways to foster community in Cambridge in an effort to fight the loneliness epidemic and create more resilience in case of an emergency. This work is strengthened by the Cambridge Community Corps, a program coordinated by CPHD. The corps are active in the community, supporting and promoting CPHD and city initiatives and events. 

Cambridge is unique in regulating the care and use of laboratory animals. The city’s ordinance provides oversight of research activities involving animals that exceed the standard federal regulations. This oversight is performed by our Commissioner of Laboratory Animals, a licensed veterinarian, and ensures proper veterinary care and humane treatment throughout an animal’s time in a facility. In addition, the Commissioner provides education and information on diseases that are transmitted between animals and humans such as the Highly Pathogenic Avian influenza viruses (bird flu).

This is only a brief overview of all the work at the health department. We hope that by celebrating National Public Health Week, the department becomes even more connected with the Cambridge Community. To learn more about public health, visit our website and visit social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky).