HJNO Jan/Feb 2026

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  JAN / FEB 2026 15 my kids, and I’m storing it correctly.” Now, it’s all self-report, but I don’t know why people would lie, right? Talking to the state about that, [state representative] Mandie Landry passed a tax credit for buying gun safes. And that’s not perfect, but that’s the way to incentiv- ize people to do it more once our funding expires. Or Medicaid will pay for violence interrupters in the hospital, like the pro- gram we have [which provides] critical de-escalation, anti-retaliation, and imme- diate support to victims of shootings and their families in the emergency department right after they’re shot. That’s very attrac- tive to them because the cost of dealing with another shooting is millions of dollars, both to the healthcare system and to the state’s economy. Child Access Protection is another bill that we got really close last session. We’re going to bring it back this session. It’s got bipartisan support because leaving guns unsecured means your suicide rate goes up, your accidental shooting rate . . . And everybody agrees that children shouldn’t have unfettered access to guns. I think when you can find some common ground, you can get leaders to talk, at least in private, maybe not always in public, about some common sense restrictions that everybody can largely be happy about. And so that’s the tactic we’re trying to take with violence. Editor What does success look like for the New Orleans Health Department in 2026 and beyond? And what metrics do you personally watch? Avegno Yeah, a lot of metrics. In fact, I have several spreadsheets worth of metrics that I have to review today. It looks like a place where everyone has equitable access to what they need to be optimally healthy for them. That doesn’t mean everybody gets the same things, that doesn’t mean everybody gets everything, but everyone has that access to take charge of their health and be supported while they’re doing it. Some of our core indicators are things like maternal child health outcomes. Are we moving the needle on maternal morbidity, mortality, infant morbidity? And how does that translate five years down the road? Our Universal Postpartum Home Visiting pro- gram — one of the selling points is that a brief series of interactions at a very early time in a family’s life actually five, 10 years later means there’s fewer DCFS [Depart- ment of Children and Family Services] calls, there’s fewer ER visits. What can we do now that we can track later? Certainly looking at numbers like decreasing opioid deaths, which is starting to happen, and decreasing deaths from vio- lent injury. Why? Because these are some of the leading causes of death. Yes, I’m also very interested in chronic disease. How can we move the needle on chronic disease, on our rates of stroke and diabetes? That’s a bigger nut to crack. And then also, how can we move the nee- dle on other preventable diseases like those from vaccines? Flu deaths, RSV, pertussis, and God forbid, measles. I look at a ton of metrics all day, every day, and I’m a numbers nerd, but those are some of the main ones. Editor Last question, where is New Orleans doing better than people realize? Avegno Oh, I think what people don’t realize is that we actually are, compared to a lot of other places and compared to other parts of the state, our vaccination rates are pretty good in terms of childhood vaccines. Got a little ways to go on our seasonal vaccines. That’s a point of pride. We haven’t had a measles outbreak yet, knock on wood. I’m really, really proud of that. I think where we also score highly is our clinical care. We have a really good number of clinicians. And I know a lot of them, and they’re really great. We have those clinical tools. We have fantastic institutions where you can get pretty much any kind of care that you need in the New Orleans area. And we have a lot of physical and envi- ronmental assets. We have a really high ratio of places in the city where you can walk to a park, even if it’s a little park. And maybe the park is not as busy as you would like it to be, but there are lots of opportu- nities to get outside if we can just make it easy, acceptable, and safe for people to do so. We’re a very walkable city. We’re a very bikeable city. We also are a very communal city, which means the epidemics of loneli- ness that plague people in a lot of cities — I think we are so well positioned to combat those because we’re always in community, whether it’s a parade or a festival or getting together with our loved ones. We are mul- tigenerational, and we believe in the value of being together. Editor Thank you so much for your time and this meaningful conversation. We look forward to having you as the our public health columnist beginning next issue. Avegno Thank you. n