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Robert Sproul is Hands-On With Public Health

ST. CLAIRSVILLE – Belmont County Deputy Health Director Robert Sproul has been a prominent local voice through the COVID-19 pandemic, but he has been addressing the area’s health needs for years.

“It’s always good to help people. Growing up here, it was the coal and the steel of the valley. We had a lot of people who had black lung issues, who were battling that. I looked into the public health side, actually helping the public,” Sproul said. “If you have a strong, healthy community, you have a good community. That kind of drew me. Being involved with people. Being out with people. It wasn’t just a desk job, it was about being out with people and talking to people in their environments.”

A resident of Belmont, Sproul was born in Martins Ferry and grew up in St. Clairsville. Upon graduating college, he first worked for the Franklin County Board of Health in Columbus, then for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, working with their scrap tire program. He would eventually return to the Ohio Valley.

“My parents had some health issues, so I returned to help take care of them and took a job with the Belmont Health Department,” he said. He was part of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program, as well as a sanitarian.

He recalled the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009.

“Which again was a pandemic, so which kind of got us in some sort of preparation for this,” he said. “Not to the level this turned out to be, but it focused and prepared the department to be in a better position when it did happen.”

As the deputy director, he said he has tried to make the best use of his staff’s abilities.

“I’m willing to listen. I’m willing to take input from all of my people,” he said. “I want input from everybody.”

He also takes a hands-on approach, such as lending a hand at various vaccination clinics.

“I’m not just going to sit in the office and send my people out,” Sproul said. “I’m going to let my people see that I’m willing to be right there in the middle of what’s going on. I’m not just going to tell them to go do it, I’m going to go do it myself.”

Sproul said drug overdoses in Belmont County have been a leading problem through most of his career here. He and his staff have concentrated on services such as providing Naloxone, a drug to counter overdoses.

“We’ve tried to stem the tide of the deaths,” he said. “That has affected the valley in a big way.”

Other major concerns include the health of children and obesity.

“We’d also like to look into the diabetes. Diabetes is kind of a big problem in the county,” Sproul said.

The staff has also reached out to form partnerships with hospitals, the private industry and other entities to fill gaps in services. Sproul said collaboration is vital.

“If I don’t have the answer or I don’t have the ability to help someone, I know someone who can, and also the other way around,” he said, adding his office is also a valuable resource for others.

“Just trying to help the community any way we can,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made a particular impact on Sproul’s office and priorities. He and his staff rose to the challenge. His environmental staff continued to inspect restaurants.

“We wanted to make sure that the facilities were still doing what they needed to do to keep the public from getting food-borne outbreaks,” he said. “We still operated throughout the pandemic, it was just very tough on my staff. They had a hard time trying to juggle COVID restrictions and meet the needs of the public.”

He said hiring outbreak investigators has taken some pressure off the staff. Sproul said members of the public are welcome at the health department office at 68501 Bannock Uniontown Road, St. Clairsville.

“We want them to come in. We want to see them. We want to meet their needs,” he said.

He also thanks volunteers for assisting at the various clinics through the pandemic.

Sproul said the pandemic has spurred some potential improvements.

“It’s been hard for everybody. We hope the health department has done a good job to meet the needs of the public to try and get us through this,” he said. “Hopefully this has put a little light on the health department. … We’re trying to meet the needs of the county. We live here. Our families live here. We want to have a very healthy county.”

In the future, Sproul hopes to work with the county commissioners toward the construction of a new and larger health department building to meet the needs of his staff and the area.

“There’s a lot of programs out there we could not apply for because we did not have space to put another person in or add other resources in the building to meet the needs of the county,” Sproul said, adding programs focusing on issues such as diabetes could be included. Another addition would be more parking spaces.

“It will be a very, very good thing for the public,” Sproul said. “More people coming in, more services being offered. It will be a big win-win for the county.”

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