ICF Podcast

In this episode, host David Speiser, Ph.D., executive vice president at ICF, and Nicola Dawkins-Lyn, Ph.D., MPH, a behavioral scientist at ICF, speak to Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), a national nonprofit organization that tracks, evaluates, and advises public health professionals across the U.S. and its territories to provide guidance and technical assistance.

The conversation covers topics such as:

• What state and territorial public health departments can do to influence social determinants of health.
• The connections between state departments of health and other state government agencies.
• What the public health enterprise can do to unite the country around better public health outcomes.
• The difference, from a state public health leader’s perspective, between working in centralized and decentralized public health systems.

Host David Speiser, Ph.D., executive vice president at ICF, and Nicola Dawkins-Lyn, Ph.D., MPH, a behavioral scientist at ICF, speak to Lori Freeman of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), a membership organization representing the nearly 3,000 local health departments across the country, on the role of the public health system during—and after—the pandemic.

• The conversation covers topics such as:
• Fragmentation and the disparate strategies and priorities of different regions across the U.S.
• Ways to engage with rural public health organizations.
• Equity factors that contribute to a person’s overall health, and systemic barriers health departments must work to remove.
• How to keep population healthy at such a polarized time.
• The crisis of a decreasing public health workforce, especially in the field of nursing.

How can we unlock the power of the private sector to scale up technologies and services that facilitate climate resilience and adaptation?

That’s the question on our minds in this podcast, as we continue to explore climate risk from a variety of perspectives.

Hosted by Brad Hurley, senior communications consultant at ICF; and Peter Schultz, Ph.D., vice president, climate and resilience; this conversation with Jay Koh, co-founder and managing director of The Lightsmith Group, a sustainable private equity firm in New York City, covers topics such as:

• The differences between investing in climate resilience and making climate resilient investments.
• The range of tools—from data and analytics to products and services—that investors use to help assess the evolving challenges that climate change introduces as risks become more complex and move from one area to another.
• How to use investment in the policy context as a tool for supporting sustainable development. 
• New frontiers and untapped opportunities in advancing resilience in the private sector.

Why it’s important to create and invest in products and services that are both designed for a more climate-changed future and superior in quality to present-day alternatives.

In this podcast, hosted by David Speiser, Ph.D., executive vice president at ICF, we speak to three leaders at Inova Health System to capture the provider perspective on the challenges and opportunities we face at this moment.

• The role of Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) and the relationships between providers and different levels of the government’s public health enterprise.
• The interplay between the health system and the community, both within and beyond healthcare facilities. 
• Data sources that are available through state and federal resources, and how that data is applied in the provider realm. 
• How qualitative feedback through resources, alliances, and partnerships enabled Inova Health System to redesign its care during COVID-19.
• How rapid credentialing has changed the provider landscape.

In this podcast, hosted by Brad Hurley, senior communications consultant at ICF, one of ICF’s leading climate experts discusses how businesses plan for climate uncertainty and the corresponding risks. The conversation with Peter Schultz, Ph.D., vice president, climate and resilience, covers topics such as: 

• The difference between the key forms of climate risk: physical and transition.
• The drivers pushing businesses to evaluate their climate risk.
• Which countries and business sectors are leading the way in being proactive about climate risk.
• The different approaches businesses can take to mitigate their climate risk.

Host David Speiser, Ph.D., executive vice president at ICF, is joined by Virginia State Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver for a candid discussion on the pandemic response from the front lines.

• The fragmented nature of public health across the U.S. and how states vary in their approaches. 
• The role of the Virginia Department of Health in regulating hospital capacity, along with lessons being absorbed from the COVID-19 emergency about how to maintain surge capacity of facilities and medical professionals. 
• How to align the public with the need to embrace critical public health interventions such as vaccine acceptance, masking, and physical distancing requirements.
• Recommendations for how to effectively prioritize new or modernized public health information systems after the pandemic, while also ensuring that they are truly national and universal.

In episode 3 of Energy Renewed, Katie Janik of ICF speaks with Steve Becker of the ICF technical advisory team within our Commercial Energy Division; Whitney Hampton, senior project manager in the RETC Group at US Bank Community Development Corporation; and Dan Miller, managing director of Origination at CIT, to discuss the impact of COVID-19 from the perspective of investors and lenders of renewable energy projects.

In episode 2 of Energy Renewed, Katie Janik of ICF speaks with Heidi Marie Larson, who leads the ICF technical advisory team within ICF’s Commercial Energy Division, and Kevin Christy, COO of North America at LightSource BP, to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on owners and developers of renewable energy projects.

Given the high stakes involved in the COVID-19 pandemic, there has never been a more urgent time to take a hard look at America’s public health enterprise and all of its deficiencies. Only then can we map out the ambitious plan that will be required to fix it.  

Several weeks ago, we released a COVID-19 funding podcast that was based on our initial understanding of the federal funding that’s available for state and local governments with regards to COVID-19 response and recovery. While much of our original recommendations are still relevant and accurate, this is an unprecedented and rapidly evolving situation. There are new cooperative agreements and updated options that state and local governments can take advantage of.