Public Health

Summary

This section summarizes the need for support in the creation of an effective public health system, in both infrastructure and resources, to protect population health from reoccurring, current, and future disease outbreaks. This section highlights key findings and provides recommendations related to the development of public health infrastructure at all levels from the federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), State and Local Health Departments, and funding of public health research vital to understanding disease outbreaks.

The goal of this sector is to implement public health programs, provide resources, understand the nature of emerging disease outbreaks, and enact prevention measures to protect and manage population health.

Recommendations

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must leverage existing resources and data to increase primary prevention and reduce secondary prevention effects by providing all individuals with timely and reliable information.
• The federal government must increase programmatic funding and coordination authority of the DHHS to improve the implementation of national public health interventions and surveillance.
• State, County, and Local Health Departments should re-task employees as necessary while trying to continue and maintain as many existing programs as possible to not allow disadvantaged populations to slip through the cracks.
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) must adjust grant application and approval processes to remove barriers and delays for research centers in obtaining grant award money to current and ongoing research fundamental to understanding current and future disease outbreaks.

Authors