Local college grad helps create MCDH COVID resource guide

You really don’t have to look very far for examples of people helping others amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In the medical field, nurses, doctors, and paramedics are helping on the front lines. Whether it’s on the front lines or behind the lines, the war on COVID-19 has drawn the attention of mostly everyone with medical training. From the field of public health, the McHenry County Department of Health and the health departments in Kane, Lake, DuPage, Will, and Cook Counties, are facing serious challenges every day.

The McHenry County Department of Health continues cranking out information on Coronavirus. The most up to date guidance on COVID-19 is the Resource Guide produced by the McHenry County Department of Health. Visit www.mchenrycountyil.gov and select the image of MCDH COVID-19 RESOURCE GUIDE in a block under the second paragraph. Follow the prompts and the blue arrows and you’ll see the question, “How can MCDH help?” (Check all that apply). The information is available at your fingertips to answer your questions.

Resource Guide is a project that MCDH Epidemiologist Ryan Sachs and volunteer Kara Suvada of Crystal Lake produced. Suvada is a 2014 graduate of Crystal Lake Central High School and a 2017 honors graduate of the American University Public Health Scholars Program in Washington, D.C. Suvada is using her training to volunteer her time assisting Sachs in the analysis of data from the COVID-19 tool they developed.

“The tool lets people pick options on what they want to know about COVID-19, such as local resources, travel restrictions, best practices to reduce your chances of contracting the virus, and the symptoms of the virus,” Suvada said. “The guide also provides valuable analytics that help the health department with planning our COVID-19 response.”

Suvada created the initial resource guide using online software Qualtrics provided to health departments for free. She has since been involved with creating the analytics for the tool, Sachs said.

Suvada’s connection to the McHenry County Department of Health (MCDH) began four summers ago as an intern. From that time to now, Suvada earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Public Health/Biology at American University and spent a semester in 2015 studying abroad. She traveled with the public health scholars program to India and immersed herself in public health through classes and field visits to different public health entities. She then began pursuing a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) with a specialty in Epidemiology from the Rollins’ School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Suvada has had experience as a research assistant with the Emory Global Diabetes Research Center, and she hopes to continue with her studies and receive a PhD in epidemiology and work in research and continue in the area of Public Health. This summer, she will serve as a fellow with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

When Suvada learned about the pandemic in March from the World Health Organization, she began volunteering for the McHenry County Department of Health from Atlanta with her work on the COVID-19 tool. The responses from the public to the information found within the Resource Guide “should also help epidemiologists like Ryan make decisions on how to help McHenry County in the coming days, weeks, and months,” Suvada said.

This year’s internships with the McHenry County Department of Health have been invaluable not only for the intern(s) but for the health department because of what the department has been facing for months now. While Sachs is the sole epidemiologist on staff for MCDH, the department has brought in two additional staff members with experience and training in epidemiology to help with operations during the COVID-19 response. Among the responsibilities of the Epidemiology Team, Sachs points to surveillance efforts where they monitor the potential spread of COVID-19 in the community.

“We use a program provided by the CDC BioSense Program to monitor hospital visits for symptoms consistent with COVID-19. We analyze COVID-19 data indicators to access how COVID-19 is affecting McHenry County. We compute statistics to look at what racial and ethnic groups are most affected, what zip codes have the highest number of cases, and how confirmed cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are increasing over time,” Sachs said.

In looking at the future, Sachs and his team are working on creating epidemiological models. He hopes these models “will predict how COVID-19 could spread in McHenry County.”

As for Suvada, she’ll not only work on her Master’s thesis, but she’ll continue helping and contributing timely and quality work for the MCDH and focus on the work with the COVID-19 tool with Ryan.

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