Title Page & Abstract
An Interview with Janet Hill
Part of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
Tumultuous 2020 Oral History project
Interview # T20-A-L-2022-23
Janet Hill, Chief Operating Officer at the Rock Island County Health Department, was interviewed on the date listed below as part of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library’s Tumultuous 2020 Oral History project.
Interview dates & location:
Date: February 24, 2022
Location: Phone interview conducted in the ALPLM’s recording studio
Interview Format: Digital audio
Interviewer: Phil Pogue, ALPLM volunteer
Total Time: 1:20 / 1.3 hrs.
Accessioned into the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Archives on August 2, 2022.
The interview is archived at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois.
© 2022 Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
Abstract
Janet Hill, Tumultuous 2020, T20-A-L-2022-23
Biographical Information/Overview of Interview: Janet Hill was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1970. She was raised in Indianapolis and attended Pike High School. She was active with the high school newspaper as an editor, the yearbook committee, as well as the speech and debate teams. She was also a member of the Latin Club and the National Honor Society. She worked in the local library system. Following her high school graduation in 1988, she began attending Franklin College as a journalism major. Throughout college, Janet would serve as the school’s newspaper editor. She graduated with a Bachelor of Art in Journalism and began working as an editor in Shelbyville, Indiana; Danville, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa. As the field of journalism was being shaped by advancing technology, Hill made the decision to get her Master of Public Health. She graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2016. Soon after she began working at the Rock Island County Health Department as the Chief Operating Officer. She oversees WIC, Family Case Management, and the agency’s public information officer.
Throughout the interview, Hill outlines the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic presented to Rock Island County through the lens of a public health administrator. She provides as overview of the health department, which has forty-five employees, and the services it provides to the community. Hill also explains how the Rock Island County Health Department maintained those services throughout the pandemic, from March 2020 to February 2022. Some of the challenges Hill faced included following and adjusting the Emergency Plan Handbook, replenishing medical supplies, creating testing sites, hiring temporary contact tracers, training current staff, as well as creating mass vaccination sites. Hill shares how the pandemic had a detrimental effect on other public health areas, such as drug and alcohol abuse, healthcare inequality, and mental health. She addresses possible changes that may be needed for future public health operations as a result of the pandemic. Hill concludes by detailing the personal impact of dealing with work issues and the pandemic’s affect on her home life.
Subject Headings/Key Words: Tumultuous 2020; Tumultuous 2020 oral history; COVID-19; pandemic’s impact on county health departments; COVID-19 pandemic; Rock Island County Health Department; RICHD; health department; Quad Cities; Janet Hill
Notes to the Reader: Readers of the oral history memoir should bear in mind that this is a transcript of the spoken word, and that the interviewer, interviewee and editor sought to preserve the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for the views expressed therein. We leave these for the reader to judge.
COPYRIGHT
The following material can be used for educational and other non-commercial purposes without the written permission of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. “Fair use” criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. These materials are not to be deposited in other repositories, nor used for resale or commercial purposes without authorization from the ALPLM.