Chesapeake Health Director Dr. Nancy Welch will step down at the end of August. Before fully retiring in January, 2027, she plans to continue working on population health initiatives with Healthy Chesapeake, a nonprofit community coalition she helped establish.
Dr. Caitlin Pedati, who leads the Virginia Beach Health Department and oversees VDH’s Eastern Region, will provide interim oversight for Chesapeake’s health department. Dr. Billie Blair-Taylor will serve as Chesapeake’s medical director for the time being.
Welch said VDH expects to advertise the permanent position in October or November, followed by interviews, with the goal of having a new full-time director in place in January.
WHRO’s Yiqing Wang sat down with Welch to discuss the community she has served, her next steps and what she hopes the next Chesapeake health director will carry forward.
WHRO: Dr. Welch, you started in public health in 1976. You are stepping down as Chesapeake’s health director at the end of this month, just shy of 50 years in the field. Why now?
Dr. Nancy Welch: It's a hard decision because I've thoroughly enjoyed and motivated by public health, but there are some medical components that I have to address, so that sort of contributed to the decision to officially retire. But I'm not officially retiring until the second of January, although I will be no longer at the end of this month [as] health director.
WHRO: You have said your childhood made you a “community person.” How did that eventually lead you from pediatrics into public health?
NW: I was the oldest girl and was called the “little mama.” And my parents always believed in me and how I could help with the family, and I helped with my younger siblings.
We had the eye of a hurricane come right through while my mother delivered the baby at the hospital, so we had no electricity or anything. And this was back in the olden days where you had to make the formula every day, and fortunately, there was one person in the neighborhood who had a gas stove. So we went over every day and made the formula on their gas stove, and that's when you used evaporated milk and everything else, you know, the old-fashioned way.
But it was okay, I slept on the floor beside my new sister, and when she woke up at night to be fed. I'd simply warmed her bottle over a candle, and that worked.
I’m totally certain that experience has shaped me. It directed me to pediatrics initially so I finished the pediatric residency but I wasn’t an office person. I was a community person. I didn’t realize it was public health at the time. It was just helping people in the community.
WHRO: You have led the Chesapeake Health Department for 35 years. What has kept you here? And what led you to create Healthy Chesapeake, a nonprofit focused on population health and community engagement, alongside the health department?
NW: I came here because it's one location, one location. So I've been able to get to know the city, the city council, and the city leaders. I've been able to really spend time and get to know the resources in this city.
Because COVID kind of impacted negatively, not just for us in the health department, but everyone, because people stayed isolated. So I'm going to be working with Healthy Chesapeake, which is our population component, and they were established as separate from the Chesapeake Health Department, and try to reestablish the kinds of relationships and activities we had.
WHRO: What do you hope Chesapeake’s next health director will carry forward?
NW: I think that number one, definitely, community engagement, and that we have lots of opportunities for that. Also, locality engagement. The city has been very receptive to our presence on a number of the different organizations and groups that they have. So we are building that, the new health director will need to participate in that.
It's been tough, so they're having to rebuild a lot here at the district, but fortunately, I have a lot of faith in our leadership here in the health department, and they'll be able to internally rebuild a lot before even we have a new health director, which is a plus.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
