In 2007, the Public Health Institute convened public, private and community-based organizations and other stakeholders at the California Health Strategy Summit to address the challenges posed by communicable and chronic diseases in the state. The goal of the meeting was to reach consensus on a health policy agenda that would facilitate joint advocacy by public health, health care and other stakeholders to improve the health status of Californians.

The Public Health Institute, based in Oakland, Calif., is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting health, well-being and quality of life for people throughout California, across the nation and around the world.

Key Results:

• The California Health Strategy Summit was held on January 17, 2007, in Los Angeles. More than 180 of California's public health and health care leaders participated, including:
  • The state's secretary of Health and Human Services and the director of the California Department of Health Services.
  • Executive-level staff from Blue Cross of California, Kaiser Permanente, HealthNet of California, Sutter Health and several statewide health care sector associations.
  • County public health department officers, public health nursing directors, laboratory directors and health agency directors.
  • Faculty members and directors of academic centers of public health practice or health care services research, including:
    • The Center for Healthier Children, Families & Communities at the University of California-Los Angeles.
    • The Center for Health and Public Policy Studies at the University of California-Berkeley.
  
  Two white papers were commissioned to inform discussions at the meeting:
  • "Chronic Disease in California," by Lawrence W. Green, Ph.D.
  • "Communicable Disease Control in California," by Robert J. Melton, MD, MPH; George Rutherford, MD, AM and Craig Hooper, PhD.
  
  According to the project director, the major accomplishments of the meeting included:
  • Identifying more than 20 issues of concern relating to public health in California.
  • Identifying three policy priority areas:
    • Workforce expansion.
    • Linkage of clinical prevention to community-based prevention.
    • Development of a chronic disease/obesity prevention infrastructure model.
  • Engaging leading health care organizations in a dialogue to spur interest in partnering with the public health sector to address selected population health issues.
  • Generating interest from state-level public health and health care services executive staff to partner with summit participants to identify community-based functions and services that support the self-management of chronic diseases.