Factors of Success for Transitioning From a Scientific Role to a Supervisory Leadership Role in a Federal Public Health Agency, 2016

Learn and Lead: Implementation of a Leadership Development Pilot Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

OBJECTIVES

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) needs leaders at all levels who can address technical and adaptive challenges in a changing public health landscape. We assessed the feasibility of implementing an enterprise-wide leadership development model.

METHODS

In June 2023, we launched a pilot program, Learn and Lead, for nonsupervisory staff in early and mid-career levels. One hundred sixty-nine participants registered, and 149 completed at least 6 weeks of the 8-week program. We gathered quantitative and qualitative data through weekly electronic surveys and in-depth interviews. We calculated frequencies for closed-ended Likert-scale items and performed content analysis of open-ended items to assess most frequently mentioned themes. We based the pilot's design on CDC's leadership development framework to assess application of the framework and alignment of curriculum to the framework.

RESULTS

Three themes emerged: logistics and facilitation, leadership development curriculum, and making connections with self and others. Findings for logistics and facilitation highlighted preferences for course length, small breakout groups, mixed weeks, and value of staff support. Findings for the leadership development curriculum underscored the relevance of the US Office of Personnel Management's fundamental competencies to leadership development. Findings for making connections with self and others supported the cohort model and the importance of networking.

CONCLUSIONS

The pilot curriculum aligned well with the CDC leadership development framework. Feedback provided by pilot participants is being used to help shape CDC's ongoing leadership development efforts.

Leadership development among public health officials in Nepal: A grounded theory

Leadership in public health is necessary, relevant, and important as it enables the engagement, management, and transformation of complex public health challenges at a national level, as well as collaborating with internal stakeholders to address global public health threats. The research literature recommends exploring the journey of public health leaders and the factors influencing leadership development, especially in developing countries. Thus, we aimed to develop a grounded theory on individual leadership development in the Nepalese context. For this, we adopted constructivist grounded theory, and conducted 46 intensive interviews with 22 public health officials working under the Ministry of Health, Nepal. Data were analysed by adopting the principles of Charmaz's constructivist grounded theory. The theory developed from this study illustrates four phases of leadership development within an individual-initiation, identification, development, and expansion. The 'initial phase' is about an individual's wishes to be a leader without a formal role or acknowledgement, where family environment, social environment and individual characteristics play a role in influencing the actualisation of leadership behaviours. The 'identification phase' involves being identified as a public health official after having formal position in health-related organisations. The 'development' phase is about developing core leadership capabilities mostly through exposure and experiences. The 'expansion' phase describes expanding leadership capabilities and recognition mostly by continuous self-directed learning. The grounded theory provides insights into the meaning and actions of participants' professional experiences and highlighted the role of individual characteristics, family and socio-cultural environment, and workplace settings in the development of leadership capabilities. It has implications for academia to fulfill the absence of leadership theory in public health and is significant to fulfill the need of leadership models grounded in the local context of Asian countries.

Chemical Compound Chemical Treatment in Animal Husbandry

The acidulant is widely used in the production of animal husbandry, and its use is affected by many factors, including environmental factors, dosage, diet composition, and animal’s own factors, so only the correct use of the acidulant can bring good results in animal production and financial income. This article takes acidifier as an example to study the application of compound chemical treatment in livestock farms. In this paper, the effect of using acidulant in the first 1 to 3 weeks after early weaning of piglets is obvious through this experimental study. The effect gradually decreases after 3 weeks and basically has no effect after 4 weeks. Experimental studies have found that the combination of organic acids, antibiotics, and high copper is the most effective. These three have different functions and have complementary or additive effects. Under harsh feeding conditions, especially when the environmental sanitation and environmental conditions are relatively poor, the effect of acidulants is better than good feeding conditions. Experimental data show that fulvic acid depletes milk’s somatic cells in a short period of time and then quickly activates immune function, which is indicated by the increase in lymphocytes in the blood. When a large number of somatic cells migrate to the breast, the somatic cells in milk will also increase, thereby improving the immunity mediated by human cells. The experimental results show that the BFA formula added 1% to the cattle feed. After the research control of this experiment, the milk output increased by 9–17%, and the quality milk output increased by 19.12%, so the use of acidulant increased feed compensation and reduces gastrointestinal diseases and the reproduction of microorganisms in the rumen of dairy cows.