Question

1. Does our public health infrastructure need improvement or enhancements (more money)?

2. What is the risk of not investing in public health infrastructure?

Answer 1

Public health infrastructure provides communities, states, and the Nation the capacity to prevent disease, promote health, and prepare for and respond to both acute (emergency) threats and chronic (ongoing) challenges to health. Infrastructure is the foundation for planning, delivering, evaluating, and improving public health.

Why Is Public Health Infrastructure Important?

All public health services depend on the presence of basic infrastructure. Every public health program—such as immunizations, infectious disease monitoring, cancer and asthma prevention, drinking water quality, injury prevention—requires health professionals who are competent in cross-cutting and technical skills, up-to-date information systems, and public health organizations with the capacity to assess and respond to community health needs. Public health infrastructure has been referred to as “the nerve center of the public health system.

An effective public health system that can assure the nation's health requires the collaborative efforts of a complex network of people and organizations in the public and private sectors, as well as an alignment of policy and practice of governmental public health agencies at the national, state, and local levels. In the United States, governments at all levels (federal, state, and local) have a specific responsibility to strive to create the conditions in which people can be as healthy as possible. For governments to play their role within the public health system, policy makers must provide the political and financial support needed for strong and effective governmental public health agencies.

While a strong infrastructure depends on many organizations, public health agencies (health departments) are considered primary players. Federal agencies rely on the presence of solid public health infrastructure at all levels2 to support the implementation of public health programs and policies and to respond to health threats, including those from other countries.

2.initiatives to improve national and regional infrastructures have been organized to address needs identified in research or in national policy reports. In this regard, the CDC has played a national leadership role, in partnership with national organizations, by identifying public health infrastructure development as a national priority, by supporting programs and activities needed to improve certain aspects of infrastructure as noted below, and by supporting research and research-methods development on the public health system.