Translating the Public Health Action Plan
Into Action

Guidance for Task Groups
Task 2: Strategic Leadership, Partnership and Organization

Strategic Leadership, Partnership and Organization

Action: Convene public health agencies at national, state, and local levels.

Task: Develop implementation plans at state and local levels, to include fostering inter–agency collaborations and assessment of the competencies needed for creating and maintaining strong partnerships.

Outcome, April 2005: A progress report including examples of state and local implementation, internal and external agency collaborations, and an inventory of needed competencies, with a plan for periodic convening of public health agencies.

Rationale

To implement the Action Plan by developing implementation plans at the state and local community levels. By citing successful examples for heart disease and stroke prevention, health agencies and their partners take the needed leadership roles. It will also set the stage for organizational change to establish a focal point for CVH within each health agency.

What Success Will Look Like

The report will include existing implementation plans and current activities of public health agencies at state and local levels in heart disease and stroke prevention. Strengths and limitations of leadership, partnerships, and internal collaboration and organizational arrangements for prevention activities will be addressed. Competencies needed to enhance effective leadership by public health agencies will be a particular focus. Guidance can be offered to state and local public health agencies in effective development and implementation of their own plans. At the present stage a comprehensive assessment is unlikely to be feasible for this early report; rather, illustrative examples will serve to guide current thinking and to shape further assessment. Ultimately, best practices can be identified that will make health agencies more effective in the roles required for successful long–term intervention to prevent heart disease and stroke.

This Task in the Larger Picture

This specific task in the broader context of strategic leadership, partnerships, and organization is shown in the attached summary. The many potential links of this task with the other themes of the Action Plan are illustrated by the following:

• Effective communication: The right messages communicated effectively will aid in mobilizing support for public health leadership, stimulating strong partnerships, and developing improved organizations for heart disease and stroke prevention. Public health agencies can contribute importantly to the task of devising and implementing needed communication strategies.
   
• Taking action: Opportunities for effective action will become clearer as state and local leadership, partnerships, and organizations are enhanced and well–guided partnerships become engaged in identifying and prioritizing prevention opportunities.
   
• Strengthening capacity: While the present task addresses capacity in leadership, partnerships, and organization, and the specific competencies needed in these areas, additional capacity development addressed in the Action Plan will help public health agencies take on their expected new roles. As leadership, partnerships, and organizations strengthen heart disease and stroke prevention, the need for strengthening capacity in public health agencies will become more widely recognized and more adequately supported.
   
• Evaluating impact: Improved data systems can make leadership better informed, partnerships more focused on outcomes, and organizations more accountable for indicators of effective policies and programs. Effective public health leaders will be able to improve health data systems
   
• Advancing knowledge: More effective leadership, partnerships, and organization will better determine the policy issues that require further research. Based on the results of continuing research, informed leaders and constituencies will be prepared to put new knowledge to work more rapidly and effectively than in the past.
   
• Engaging in regional and global partnerships: Regional and global dimensions of heart disease and stroke place especially great reliance on leadership, partnerships, and organizational strengths of public health agencies. Advances in this area as a result of task 2 and its subsequent development will contribute to partnership activities beyond the national scale alone. Widespread collaboration in heart disease and stroke prevention will accelerate and streamline this work by sharing knowledge, experience, and resources.

Approach to the Task

While the approach to be taken should be determined by the leaders and members of the task group, the following suggested 10–step list may be helpful:

1. Define the scope of activity to be pursued through April 2005, within the overall statement of the task, above.
2. Prepare a preliminary outline of the anticipated report.
3. Identify the main source materials that will support the group's work.
4. Take account of related work by others, whether completed or in progress.
5. Consider whether expertise or consultation beyond the task group will be needed, whether within the National Forum or beyond, and arrange to obtain the needed input.
6. Divide responsibilities for work components among all members of the group.
7. Use support staff to assist in logistics and communications.
8. Maintain frequent contact and monitor progress, including a cumulative record of meetings and accomplishments.
9. Draft the task group report.
10. Present the report to the 3rd National Forum, April 2005.

CDC Support Staff Contact Information

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and
Health Promotion
Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention
4770 Buford Highway NE, MS K-47
Atlanta, GA 30341
Tele: 770–488–5504
Fax: 770–488–8151
Email: ccdinfo@cdc.gov
Web site: http://www.cdc.gov/hdsp/

The Context for the Concrete Tasks
Task 2: Strategic Leadership, Partnerships, and Organization

Action: Convene public health agencies at national, state, and local levels.

Task: Develop implementation plans at state and local levels, to include interagency collaborations and the need for creating and maintaining strong partnerships.

Expected Outcome: Present a progress report including examples of state and local implementation, internal and external agency collaborations, and a needed competencies inventory, with a plan for periodic convening of public health agencies.

The above task is 1 of 8 tasks for the National Forum to implement during the current year. This task emerged from 1 of 4 priority action statements in the area of strategic leadership, partnerships, and organization designated by Working Group 4 in January 2004. These action statements are

• Broaden, strengthen, and sustain multi–sector, inclusive public health partnerships and CVH policy coalitions for implementing the Action Plan.
   
• Convene public health agencies to help develop implementation plans at national, state, and local levels.
   
• Foster collaboration within state health departments among complementary CVH–related programs.
   
• Acquire organizational skills and competencies in new approaches to communication, collaboration, and negotiation to create and maintain strong partnerships.

Task 2 and its related priority action steps were developed from the following recommendation in the full Action Plan:

"The nation's public health agencies and their partners must provide leadership for a comprehensive public health strategy to prevent heart disease and stroke."

The background of this task can be found in A Public Health Action Plan to Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke in Section 3. Recommendations, and Section 4. Implementation: Mobilizing for Action.

|Go to Task 3

Date last reviewed: 05/12/2006
Content source: Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion