The goal of national public health accreditation is to improve and protect Americans' health by advancing the quality and performance of all health departments in the country—state, local, territorial and tribal.
The Multistate Learning Collaborative is a national program of 16 states that is helping health departments prepare for accreditation and engage in continuous quality improvement.
The Community of Practice in Public Health Improvement is a two-year, $1.75 million project led by the National Network of Public Health Institutes and funded by the Foundation that facilitates the exchange of best practices and builds capacity among the nation’s public health departments to become accredited and conduct quality improvement.
The Center for Sharing Public Health Services, which is administered by the Kansas Health Institute, helps teams of public health officials and policymakers test and refine ways that public health agencies can share resources and work together to improve their performance.
Also check out a Q&A with co-director Patrick Libbey on NewPublicHealth.
Read more about the CenterThe Transforming Public Health project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and convened by RESOLVE, tasked a small group of public health thought leaders with developing guidance for public health officials and policy-makers in prioritizing vital public health functions in a shifting political and fiscal landscape.
Participants included a diverse public health stakeholders, including state and local health officers, academics, federal agency representatives, and public health advocates. The dialogue was within the context of recent and ongoing budget and staffing cuts at health departments across the country, as well as new opportunities provided by a reforming health care system and ever present concerns about health care costs.
Read the reportHundreds of local, state and national public health practitioners gathered electronically for a webinar on the Transforming Public Health report. Read highlights from the conversation, including ideas and innovations from the field across local health departments.
Read the articleWe want to hear your thoughts on the future of public health.
Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments in this post, and help us chart the course for a new public health. For example, how is your public health department adapting in the current changing landscape?
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The membership organizations for local, state, and tribal health departments provided technical assistance and funding to health departments participating in the public health accreditation beta test.
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Public health leaders are being challenged to do more with less: to maintain essential public health services and improve population health with diminishing resources. Public health performance measures—which also establish thresholds for accreditation of public health departments—provide a way to evaluate quality improvement interventions.
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Longitudinal studies have provided a clear picture of how fluctuations in local health departments (LHDs) funding affect mortality and morbidity in the communities served by the LHDs. This study employed a longer study time period and more robust statistical controls than were previously available in the relevant literature.
Read moreBetween April and November 2010 the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials conducted a national, web-based profile survey of state public health agencies.
Read moreAs state and local health departments continue to cope with budget cuts, job losses and the demands of preparing communities for both seasonal and H1N1 flu, it’s more important than ever to build the evidence for what works—and what is cost-effective—in public health. The field of Public Health Services and Systems Research answers some of the most important and challenging questions about how public health can be structured, managed, staffed, funded and organized so it can improve the lives of the people it serves.
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