Frontline Fatigue: Addressing Trauma and Burnout for Public Health Professionals

Overview:

This is a 90-minute recording of a live webinar on September 17, 2025. 

Public health professionals are often the invisible responders during times of crisis, chronic community trauma, and systemic differences. While serving others, many are experiencing unprecedented levels of fatigue, moral distress, secondary trauma, and burnout — often without the space or support to process it. 

This webinar, hosted by the Region IV Public Health Training Center in collaboration with the James and Jennifer Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence at the University of South Florida College of Public Health, offers a trauma-informed and systems-oriented approach to understanding and addressing occupational stress in the public health workforce. Participants will explore how individual experiences of burnout are often shaped by broader organizational and societal structures — and will walk away with practical tools to promote wellbeing and resilience at both the personal and institutional levels. 

Whether you’re new to the field or a seasoned practitioner, this session aims to validate, resource, and restore those working at the intersection of care, fairness, and public health.

Abraham Salinas, MD, PhD, MPH, MACE, CDVS, is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida, College of Public Health in Tampa, Florida. Dr. Salinas serves as the Director for the James and Jennifer Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence and is the Assistant Director for the Center of Excellence in Maternal Child Health at the College of Public Health. Dr. Salinas brings an interdisciplinary background in violence prevention, adverse child experiences, maternal child health epidemiology, public health, medicine, (pediatrics), and community-based participatory research studies. He is a Certified Domestic Violence Specialist and a Certified Trauma-Informed Care Coach. He oversees various research studies as principal investigator and contributes to scientific, technical, and programmatic activities in addition to serving as a subject matter expert on community-based research, dating violence, and trauma-informed research.

Christiana (“Chrissy”) Zimmer, MPH, CPH, is a passionate public health professional specializing in disability/accessibility, violence prevention, trauma, and public health policy and practice. Chrissy received her Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the University of South Florida, College of Public Health, and holds the national Certification in Public Health (CPH).  Chrissy has worked on various projects related to research, program planning, and evaluation. With a background in academic ghost writing, Chrissy uses her writing skills, love for strategic planning, and systems thinking as her professional foundation to improve public health programs. Chrissy has had the honor of serving as the Training and Community Outreach Coordinator at the James & Jennifer Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence since 2022.

Learning Objectives: By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Differentiate between burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and moral distress in public health settings.
• Identify individual and organizational signs of chronic stress and trauma exposure.
• Explore the systemic and structural contributors to workforce burnout in public health.
• Apply trauma-informed, resilience-oriented strategies to support wellbeing for themselves and their teams.
• Describe practical ways organizations can foster a culture of psychological safety, peer support, and collective care.

CERTIFICATE: The course contains two modules: a module to access the webinar and an evaluation module. After accessing these modules, learners will earn a certificate of completion.

This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number UB6HP31680, Public Health Training Centers for $4,348,992. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.