The following are Subcommittees or Projects undertaken by the Public Health Functions Project:
A. Public Health Expenditures:
The Public Health Functions Project, the Office of Planning and Evaluation, and the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion have sponsored a number of projects intended to provide a more complete picture of the Nations expenditures on population-focused public health. The various projects have been designed to identify mechanisms that would provide both information on the overall size of the investment in public health at different levels of government and information on the distribution of the expenditures across the component essential services of public health (as described in the Public Health Functions Project statement Public Health in America).
1. Federal:
- FY 95 (Public Health Service Agencies Only), published in MMWR
- FY 96 (Public Health Service Agencies Only), distributed to Public Health Functions Project participants
- FY 97 (HHS plus EPA), in process
2. State:
- 1993-94, 8 States, public health agency only, published in MMWR and separate report by Public Health Foundation
- 1995-96, 9 States, health, mental health, substance abuse and environmental agencies, published in MMWR, Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, separate report by Public Health Foundation
- 1998, 2 States (see 1998 entry under local expenditures)
3. Local:
- 1995-96, States participating in state expenditure study asked to estimate local expenditures within their jurisdictions
- 1997, 3 local health departments, published as separate report by Public Health Foundation
- 1998, all local health departments in 2 States, planning now underway
B. Public Health Guideline Development: The Public Health Functions Project mission states as one of its goals, "develop and publish a full set of evidence-based guidelines for sound public health practice."
C. Public Health Workforce, Training, and Education: This Subcommittee and its three subgroups, Workforce Group, Competency-Based Curriculum Group, and the Distance Learning System Development Group, have just completed over two years of work with the report, The Public Health Workforce: An Agenda for the 21st Century. This report is the first step in the Public Health Functions Project taking action in public health workforce issues. Currently, these groups are not meeting, but in the near future we may have to pull together a meeting to coordinate follow-up action items.
D. Healthy People 2010: The newest Subcommittee to the Project, this group is working on developing a focus area on public health infrastructure for Healthy People 2010. The Public Health Practice Program Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is coordinating development of national objectives for the proposed Healthy People 2010 focus area on public health infrastructure on behalf of the Public Health Functions Steering Committee. To date, two national workgroup meetings with representatives from Federal, national, State, and local levels have been held. Draft objectives are being formulated and circulated to a wide range of partners. The framework for the chapter development is the ten essential public health services and the four major components of infrastructuresystems, competencies, relationships and resources. For additional information, please contact Pomeroy Sinnock, Ph.D., by telephone at (770) 488-2469, or by e-mail at pxs1@cdc.gov.
E. Public Health Data: The Public Health Functions Project has a goal related specifically to data: "Collaborate with the PHS Data Policy Committee to identify the information and data needs for the effective implementation of the essential services of public health, and develop a strategy for the interface between the personal services and population-wide systems, ensuring the availability of information necessary to both." The PHS Data Policy Committee is an internal DHHS committee which has not met in over a year now, however the DHHS Data Policy Committee (includes all Department agencies, not just the Public Health Service agencies), another internal committee, is who we are working with now.
F. Public Health Communications: One of the main priorities of the members of the Public Health Functions Project is to get the general public more aware of what public health is and does for them.
G. Managed Care and Public Health: This group was formed in 1995 to share information on what the partners of the Project were doing around managed care so that collaboration may occur. This group has not felt the need to meet in over a year.
H. Essential Services: In March 1993, work began on the future role of public health in a reformed health care system. Identifying the core functions of public health and creating a common terminology and description of the functions was the first step. Though the three core functions of public health developed by the Institute of Medicines report, The Future of Public Health (1988) were widely accepted among public healths policy and academic community, they did not explain to legislators or the general public what public health does. An initial attempt to further define the functions of public health were included in President Clintons Health Security Act (1993). As a result, in 1994 several revised versions began to appear from several different public health groups. In an effort to coordinate a single list for the public health community to use, the Core Public Health Functions Project was developed by Dr. Philip Lee, then Assistant Secretary for Health. A subcommittee of the Working Group, the Essential Services Work Group was formed to further refine the language. The Public Health in America statement subsequently developed was reviewed and adopted by the Core Functions Working Group and Steering Committee. In 1995, the name of this group was changed to the Public Health Functions Working Group and Steering Committee.