U.P. Community Health Town Hall

The U.P. Community Health Town Hall is a FREE, monthly, virtual webinar series hosted by Elise Bur, Director of the Center for Rural Health at Northern Michigan University and is organized in partnership with Dr. Steven Elmer, Associate Professor, and Dr. Kelly Kamm, Assistant Professor, both from the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology at Michigan Technological University.

The Town Hall provides a platform for the public to engage with a diverse panel of subject- matter experts such as public health officials, clinicians, educators, agencies, etc. and focuses on a variety of aspects that impact the health and wellbeing of communities throughout the Upper Peninsula. Regional health statistics, emerging health issues, current initiatives, and best practices are shared in an effort to increase awareness, inspire action and improve the health of individuals.

The Town Hall broadcast will take place the last Thursday of each month and may be viewed live at 7:00 p.m. ET through the following Zoom Webinar link: https://bit.ly/UPhealthtownhall.

Webinar passcode: 739576

Additionally, the Town Hall can be heard live on 97.7 The Wolf (WOLV-FM), 98.7 Rockin Eagle (WGLI-FM), 105.7 Eagle Country (WCUP-FM), and 107.7 Q107 (WMQT-FM). The recordings of each Town Hall are also posted below.

To send questions to the moderators before the upcoming session, email ruralhealth@nmu.edu.

Webinar passcode: 739576

Follow the U.P. Community Health Town Hall on Facebook to get the most up-to-date information on upcoming sessions.

Upcoming Session

Deferred until May

History of Town Hall Development

December 2020-April 2022
Dr. Steven Elmer (Associate Professor) and Dr. Kelly Kamm (Epidemiologist & Assistant Professor), from the Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology department at Michigan Technological University (MTU), developed and delivered a virtual Covid-19 Community Town Hall series to increase public awareness about COVID-19 and its impact on health and society. The project was derived from building academic and community partnerships and aired weekly between September-December 2020. The series then moved to a monthly broadcast schedule.

January 2021-April 2022.
At the inception, Town Hall themes included the role of public health to protect community health, impact of disease on physical and mental health, health disparities, mechanisms to interrupt and halt transmission, and strategies for adapting to lifestyle changes. The public town hall series provided a robust platform to deliver critical, real-time health information to MTU’ campus and the broader community in the western portion of the Upper Peninsula during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fall 2022
In the fall of 2022, Dr. Elmer, Dr. Kamm and Elise Bur, Director of the Center for Rural Health at Northern Michigan University (NMU) discussed the concept of collaborating and expanding the topic of the series to address general health and wellbeing and extending the reach of the program to encompass the entire Upper Peninsula region. The Town Hall series continued with the November program providing insight into the 2021 U.P. Community Health Needs Assessment and the December program focusing on mental health and wellbeing.

January 2023
In January 2023, the platform of the Town Hall relocated to the Center for Rural Health at NMU in an effort to broaden the scope of the geographic audience. The program continues to be organized in partnership between Dr. Steven Elmer, Dr. Kelly Kamm and Elise Bur and they look forward to continuing and potentially expanding collaborative efforts in the future.