LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — GNR Public Health is now the official name for the three-county public health district covering Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale counties. 

The rebrand comes after two years of leading the charge against the COVID-19 pandemic in these communities, a news release stated.

“We felt now was an excellent time to create a more visually appealing and recognizable brand,” said Dr. Audrey Arona, district health director of GNR Public Health. 

“Most importantly, we wanted to change our name to include ‘public health’ because our focus is indeed on our public. 

“We’ve had an opportunity to educate our communities about what public health does, which goes beyond just the health department clinical services that are typically more visible,” Arona said.

Examples of those often less visible — but just as important — services cover disease monitoring and mitigation; regulatory food, pool, and hotel inspections; emergency preparedness and planning; and chronic disease and community health education.

These types of services that protect and improve the health of Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale communities happen outside of the health centers that provide clinical services in the community.

“While we remain the health department for our communities, we felt like having health department in our name locally connotated the idea of a location — a place you go —rather than being illustrative of the full scope of work of our agency,” said Chad Wasdin, communications director at GNR Public Health. 

“Our purpose as an organization is to develop our communities to be healthy, protected, and prepared. 

“We hope that with our name change and new look, we can more effectively show our counties how we can engage in projects to protect and improve the health of our communities,” Wasdin said.

The organization plans to phase in the new brand through the remainder of 2022. This will also include work toward a new website that will make information about all public health services more accessible. 

Accent Creative Group designed the new logo and has been retained by GNR Public Health to redesign the organization’s website.

More information about public health services in Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale counties is available at www.gnrhealth.com.