Episode #477 The Public Health Utility Belt, With Brian Castrucci, DrPH
On This Episode Of The Public Health Epidemiology Conversations (PHEC) Podcast
Brian Castrucci on Building a Public Health Career Around Skills, Not Subject Matter
What if the thing that makes a public health career last has almost nothing to do with the issue you start out working on? In this episode, Dr. Huntley sits down with Dr. Brian Castrucci, President and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, to talk about the workforce, the trust gap, and the plain language public health still hasn't learned to speak.
Dr. Castrucci's own path took him through tobacco control, maternal and child health, and local health department work before workforce development became his focus. He didn't plan it that way. Instead, he built a set of durable skills, from data analysis to storytelling, that traveled with him no matter which issue the funding followed. He calls it a "utility belt," and he thinks public health students should be building theirs long before they know what their career will actually be about.
Investing in the Workforce Behind the Work
Dr. Castrucci and Dr. Huntley dig into why de Beaumont has made workforce development a priority. The foundation's Public Health Workforce Interest and Needs Survey grew from a modest first attempt in 2014 to 55,000 responses in 2024, giving health departments something they'd never had before: a way to compare notes instead of solving the same problems alone.
Rebuilding Trust in a Divided Moment
The conversation turns to the current political and public health landscape, including the erosion of trust since the pandemic and the mainstreaming of anti-vaccine rhetoric. Dr. Castrucci argues that health leaders rebuild credibility by showing up and being visible in their communities, not by working quietly in the background. He also makes the case for finding common ground across the political aisle, even when that ground feels smaller than it used to.
Talking About Public Health Like a Human Being
Finally, Dr. Castrucci returns to a theme that runs through his whole career: public health has an amazing product and terrible marketing. He shares why plain language, real stories, and cross-sector partnerships (with businesses, schools, and local government) matter more than ever, and why the field needs to stop preaching only to people who already agree with it.
This is a conversation about skills, trust, and translation, and about what it actually takes to make public health make sense to the people it's meant to serve.
About Our Guest
Dr. Brian Castrucci
Dr. Brian Castrucci is the President and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, a private philanthropy focused on public health and public health systems. He has worked in public health for about 30 years, starting with his first job at 18 doing continuous quality improvement data work for a Safe Kids coalition at a local emergency department.
His career has spanned several areas of public health practice, including tobacco control at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, maternal and child health work, and a role at the Philadelphia Department of Health. He originally planned to pursue law or a PhD in political science before an interest in the intersection of policy and health led him toward public health instead.
Dr. Castrucci holds a master's degree from Columbia University and completed his Doctor of Public Health (DrPH), which he began in 2014 and finished in 2018. At de Beaumont, he has led the foundation's focus on public health workforce development, including the Public Health Workforce Interest and Needs Survey, as well as its work on policy and cross-sector partnerships through programs like the City Health program and the Public Health Communications Collaborative.
Listen To This Episode Of The Public Health Epidemiology Conversations (PHEC) Podcast
Conversation Highlights
Build a "utility belt" of durable skills, not just subject-matter expertise.
Content and funding priorities shift constantly, but skills like data analysis, survey research, and storytelling travel with you no matter which issue you're working on.
The workforce is the foundation everything else depends on.
Without a strong governmental public health workforce, other public health goals become much harder to reach, which is why de Beaumont has made workforce investment a core priority.
Standardized data creates power in numbers.
The Public Health Workforce Interest and Needs Survey grew from a few hundred responses in 2014 to 55,000 in 2024, giving health departments a shared, comparable picture of their needs instead of solving problems in isolation.
Rebuilding public trust starts with visibility.
Health leaders build trust by showing up and being seen in their communities, not by operating quietly in the background.
Plain language is a professional responsibility.
If a concept needs specialized training to understand, it hasn't been explained well enough, whether that's talking with family or presenting data to a community.
Cross-sector partnerships extend public health's reach.
Relationships with businesses, schools, and local government help public health show up as a partner instead of staying isolated in its own silo.
Local policy decisions carry real, visible consequences.
Choices like cutting SNAP benefits play out concretely in communities, and local leaders are often best positioned to see and communicate that impact.
"Public health isn't about us or them. There is no us or them. There has to only be an us" - Dr. Brian Castrucci
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DrCHHuntley LLC is a public health consulting firm that specializes in epidemiology consulting, supporting large nonprofit organizations in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida that serve Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). We also provide nationwide public health consulting and epidemiology consulting support to BIPOC organizations across the United States.
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