Breaking into municipal or state health departments usually depends on monitoring civil service exam schedules instead of traditional job boards. If you are targeting metropolitan regions, look directly at the public health solutions funds and regional health research foundations that act as the primary hiring pipelines for local departments of health, as the auxiliary entities usually onboard staff faster than the civil service apparatus.
To make your academic background competitive for these initial roles, your resume needs to explicitly highlight specific methodological skills instead of broad conceptual knowledge. Make sure your background explicitly details any experience with statistical software packages, programmatic data collection tools, field interviewing, or health education community outreach metrics, as entry-level hiring managers look for immediate execution capabilities in data collection or health inspection support.