Communicating the Value of the Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant.

The Preventive Health and Health Services (PHHS) Block Grant (Block Grant) continues to offer public health leadership a major lever to promote health and ensure the delivery of essential public health services. This column describes reasons why public health leaders must maintain strong participation in defining and communicating the collective and localized benefits of this flexible funding program for prevention.

The Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey: The First National Survey of State Health Agency Employees.

CONTEXT: Public health practitioners, policy makers, and researchers alike have called for more data on individual worker's perceptions about workplace environment, job satisfaction, and training needs for a quarter of a century. The Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) was created to answer that call. OBJECTIVE: Characterize key components of the public health workforce, including demographics, workplace environment, perceptions about national trends, and perceived training needs. DESIGN: A nationally representative survey of central office employees at state health agencies (SHAs) was conducted in 2014. Approximately 25,000 e-mail invitations to a Web-based survey were sent out to public health staff in 37 states, based on a stratified sampling approach. Balanced repeated replication weights were used to account for the complex sampling design. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: A total of 10,246 permanently employed SHA central office employees participated in PH WINS (46% response rate). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Perceptions about training needs; workplace environment and job satisfaction; national initiatives and trends; and demographics. RESULTS: Although the majority of staff said they were somewhat or very satisfied with their job (79%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 78-80), as well as their organization (65%; 95% CI, 64-66), more than 42% (95% CI, 41-43) were considering leaving their organization in the next year or retiring before 2020; 4% of those were considering leaving for another job elsewhere in governmental public health. The majority of public health staff at SHA central offices are female (72%; 95% CI, 71-73), non-Hispanic white (70%; 95% CI, 69-71), and older than 40 years (73%; 95% CI, 72-74). The greatest training needs include influencing policy development, preparing a budget, and training related to the social determinants of health. CONCLUSIONS: PH WINS represents the first nationally representative survey of SHA employees. It holds significant potential to help answer previously unaddressed questions in public health workforce research and provides actionable findings for SHA leaders.

Thinking beyond the silos: emerging priorities in workforce development for state and local government public health agencies.

CONTEXT: Discipline-specific workforce development initiatives have been a focus in recent years. This is due, in part, to competency-based training standards and funding sources that reinforce programmatic silos within state and local health departments. OBJECTIVE: National leadership groups representing the specific disciplines within public health were asked to look beyond their discipline-specific priorities and collectively assess the priorities, needs, and characteristics of the governmental public health workforce. DESIGN: The challenges and opportunities facing the public health workforce and crosscutting priority training needs of the public health workforce as a whole were evaluated. Key informant interviews were conducted with 31 representatives from public health member organizations and federal agencies. Interviews were coded and analyzed for major themes. Next, 10 content briefs were created on the basis of priority areas within workforce development. Finally, an in-person priority setting meeting was held to identify top workforce development needs and priorities across all disciplines within public health. PARTICIPANTS: Representatives from 31 of 37 invited public health organizations participated, including representatives from discipline-specific member organizations, from national organizations and from federal agencies. RESULTS: Systems thinking, communicating persuasively, change management, information and analytics, problem solving, and working with diverse populations were the major crosscutting areas prioritized. CONCLUSIONS: Decades of categorical funding created a highly specialized and knowledgeable workforce that lacks many of the foundational skills now most in demand. The balance between core and specialty training should be reconsidered.