Occupational Health and Safety alumna says Montana Tech education gave her the scientific background to become a public health officer

Lauren Bolton (B.S. Occupational Health and Safety, ’17) says her path to finding the right career was a little bumpy. Now Bolton works as the Public Health Director and Health Officer in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County, helping make her hometown a healthier place, but it’s a job that she had never considered as a high school senior.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I always knew I was interested in health and science,” Bolton said. Bolton, an Anaconda native, says she started out thinking she wanted to go to medical school, and after she received a Montana Minds Scholarship that covered much of the cost of college at Montana Tech, she landed in the Biological Sciences Department.

“I found out that wasn’t for me,” Bolton remembers. “Then I started down the nursing path and realized that wasn’t for me either.”

Bolton completed an internship her senior year, thinking she might go into physical or occupational therapy, but those also were not the right fit.

“I just realized that being a clinical provider just wasn’t for me,” Bolton said. “I had a little bit of a crisis. I had two semesters left to finish my bachelor’s degree.”

One of the last classes Bolton took at Montana Tech focused on aspects of community health, which aims to reduce health disparities and implement policies and programs that encourage healthy behaviors. At last, everything fell into place. Bolton applied to the University of Montana’s Master of Public Health Program in 2020, and graduated into the throes of the biggest worldwide public health emergency in a century.

“It was an interesting experience,” Bolton said. “I hope we never have to go through it again, but we learned a lot.”

Bolton’s first public health job was in Flathead County, where she worked through August 2021 before moving into her current role with Anaconda-Deer Lodge County. Bolton says she likes the work she does because she can make an impact on her community, and also because the demands of her job change every day.

“Public health is a little bit of everything,” Bolton said. “There is a niche for everybody. As a public health director and health officer in a small community, I get to be a little involved in everything. We have our communicable disease and infection control which includes our vaccination programs, case investigations, contact tracing, and disease reporting. As a health officer that falls under my authority. It is our responsibility as a county to make sure we are controlling the spread of disease. There are also sections of screening and prevention such as STI testing, lead testing, environmental toxins, and things like that, including educating people on what their exposures are, but also being an avenue for screening if they need follow-up testing or treatment. We also have a focus on our maternal child health population through WIC programs and home visiting.”

Bolton says her job requires her to be a generalist, and “have an inch-deep education on a mile-wide of topics.” She believes her STEM education from Montana Tech has served her well.

“I know Montana Tech is top tier for science courses,” Bolton said. “There are arenas of public health you can go into, like the environmental health aspect, which has a huge microbiology component, or epidemiology, which is focused on statistical analysis, and my degree from Montana Tech helped lay the groundwork for a lot of foundational pieces of public health.”

Bolton speaks with local high school students every year to let them know that public health is an important career field, and that health professions include a vast array of possibilities.

“Public health nurses are important and we need them, but it’s not just nurses,” Bolton said. “There are so many roles in public health that are not nursing focused, and frankly that nursing does not prepare you for. Health is not limited to clinical care at a hospital or a clinic. There are so many different ways to be involved in the health of a community. Know public health is there and it is a very diverse field of employment.”

Bolton says students interested in a career in public health should consider connecting with the Association of Montana Public Health Officials. She is also open to taking questions from students at lbolton@adlc.us.