Public Health Experts Call for Action to Strengthen Workforce

An impressive lineup of influential state and national public health professionals gathered recently for a webinar looking back at COVID-19 pandemic innovations and advancements and looking ahead to focus on community partnerships, health equity, workforce recruitment and retention and the importance of supporting public health at the state and local levels.

The fifth edition of the Lights, Camera, Action summit series, Strengthening the Public Health Workforce, kicked off with reflections from CDC Foundation President and CEO Judy Monroe, MD, on the CDC Foundation’s pandemic surge staffing projects, which placed more than 4,000 field employees into city, state, tribal and territorial health departments to support the emergency response to COVID-19.

One of the Foundation’s partners in that effort was Patricia Simone, MD, the director of CDC’s Division of Workforce Development at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who introduced several workforce pipeline projects and highlighted the agency’s new long-term, multi-component initiative for infrastructure development for jurisdictions. “In November last year, CDC awarded $3.2 billion to 107 state, local and territorial jurisdictions across the U.S.,” Simone highlighted. “We're really excited about the five years of work on this grant and its potential for transforming the public health infrastructure.”

Continuing the conversation, Lisa Waddell, MD, MPH, former CDC Foundation chief medical officer, facilitated a discussion on ways state health departments are strengthening their efforts through innovative data-based programs, public policy change and professional development, with examples from officials in Hawaii, Indiana and Maryland. 

In a second panel led by Waddell, a trio of jurisdictional leaders from Alaska, Tennessee and Puerto Rico described successful engagement strategies their departments are putting into action to improve health equity. Anne Zink, MD, FACEP, chief medical officer for the Alaska Department of Health, described the department’s successful partnerships with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) and the state’s 229 distinct federally recognized Tribes, underscoring the importance of community-driven response and culturally appropriate communications.

To wrap up the webinar, Monroe asked national public health policy experts to share their views and vision for the future of public health. These individuals included Anand Parekh, MD, MPH, chief medical advisor, Bipartisan Policy Center; Brian Castrucci, DrPH, MA, president and CEO, de Beaumont Foundation; and Carolina Luna-Pinto, MPH, CHES (USPHS, CAPT), acting director, CDC Office of Minority Health & Health Equity. 

A lively discussion followed, in which the panelists explored the need for strong, data-driven leadership at the state level, called for a national effort to standardize hiring practices among jurisdictions and stressed the importance of engaging with, and securing the support of, business leaders, federal partners, legislators and others. 

And all agreed the public needs to learn more about the lifesaving work of public health. As Parekh put it, “Public health is really about all of their activities in a day. It's about clean air. It's about clean water, it's about safe schools. It's about safe roads. It's about preventing substances from getting into your community. It's about improving health behavior and health education, improving the environment. ... I think there's an opportunity for us to take back how we define public health, ensure that the public understands how public health relates to them.”

And Castrucci agrees. "We cannot become a nation that turns our back on public health, because if we do, we threaten our safety, our security and our economic prosperity.”

Watch the webinar, download the slides and discover resources at the Lights, Camera, Action summit series.

This blog is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $220,000,000 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CDC/HHS or the U.S. Government.