Mistrust, polarization steer rejection of federal public health funding
ELKO — When Elko County commissioners rejected a $500,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that could have helped the county create a health department or health district, Kayla Hopkins pleaded with them to reconsider.
Hopkins, who has lived for nearly nine years in the sprawling rural county that forms the northeastern corner of Nevada, told the board how she struggled through postpartum depression and needed mental health resources.
“I was unable to get the help that I needed,” Hopkins said during a public meeting in late 2021, adding that she fell into what could be considered a mental breakdown. She said she was sent by air ambulance more than 300 miles away to Carson City, where she received care in a psychiatric facility for 10 days.
“I was away from my family,” Hopkins said. “I was away from my support system here, and I still struggle with mental health, and
I still cannot get the help that I need because we just don’t have it here.”
Pleas from Hopkins and others weren’t enough to sway the elected commissioners.
Neither were 11 letters from local health leaders urging the board to take the infusion of public health funding.
Four of the county’s five commissioners, citing concerns about government overreach and their lack of trust in federal agencies, voted against pursuing the grant. Nearly a year later, as the pandemic grinds toward a third year and with the arrival of monkeypox, the county still is without a public health department to respond.
And the same mistrust of agencies administering grants for public health persists elsewhere.
Elko County, home to about 54,000 people, wasn’t alone in rejecting federal aid aimed at bolstering public health in the past year. Experts said they were surprised and concerned to see the rare local or state leader, swayed by political partisanship, dismiss funding opportunities for historically limited public health systems.
As many conservative leaders and their constituents railed against measures
“Partisan politics has poisoned the well to a point that we’re willing to sacrifice the health of our citizens.”
Brian Castrucci, president and CEO, de Beaumont Foundation