Understanding Factors Influencing Decision Making by State Health Officials in a Public Health Emergency.

State and territorial health officials (STHOs) play a critical role in leading public health emergency response in their respective states. Through an exploratory qualitative study with 21 current or former STHOs, we sought to understand the issues that impact STHO decision making in public health responses. Initial findings suggest the need for structured decision making tools for use by leaders responding to public health emergencies, including COVID-19. Such tools could lead to more systematic responses by STHOs during public health crises.

Weaving and Layering Funding: A Territorial Health Agency's Guide to Effective Health Financing.

CONTEXT: State and territorial health agencies can optimize programmatic funding through braiding and layering strategies. IMPLEMENTATION: The Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation, a territorial health agency located on the Pacific Island of Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), restructured its Non-Communicable Disease Bureau into 4 new units. Existing funding streams were braided and layered to support the restructuring. A shared vision of strengthening crosscutting connections to improve population health outcomes helped guide the restructuring process. Vision planning with leaders and funding partners, establishing buy-in within agency and external partners, and assessing immediate impacts were a few of the steps taken by the agency to ensure a successful restructuring. IMPACT: The immediate impact of the restructure has been positive. In both the CNMI and select states that have undertaken similar efforts, braiding and layering funding has facilitated more streamlined processes, coordinated approaches across programs and funding partners, and provided deeper levels of trust in partnerships. Although it is still too early to draw long-term assessments in the CNMI, the agency projects that coordinated funds will strengthen its foundational capabilities and promote a more community-centered, collaborative, and effective approach to public health. Restructuring the Non-Communicable Disease Bureau through braiding and layering funds gives the agency the flexibility it needs to more effectively address the social determinants of health and local population health priorities through a client-centered approach, ultimately improving health outcomes for the commonwealth. LESSONS LEARNED AND IMPLICATIONS: The agency experienced several challenges throughout the restructuring process that offer lessons learned for addressing effective health financing. For example, ample time is needed at the beginning of the braiding and layering process to establish policies and procedures for efficient accounting, documenting, and reporting. In addition, ongoing support and training opportunities for programmatic teams can smooth out the transition from siloed to braided and layered funding structures. These lessons, in addition to key elements mapped out by experienced state health agencies, can guide and prepare other agencies interested in implementing innovative funding mechanisms.

The Exodus Of State And Local Public Health Employees: Separations Started Before And Continued Throughout COVID-19.

Understanding the size and composition of the state and local governmental public health workforce in the United States is critical for promoting and protecting the health of the public. Using pandemic-era data from the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey fielded in 2017 and 2021, this study compared intent to leave or retire in 2017 with actual separations through 2021 among state and local public health agency staff. We also examined how employee age, region, and intent to leave correlated with separations and considered the effect on the workforce if trends were to continue. In our analytic sample, nearly half of all employees in state and local public health agencies left between 2017 and 2021, a proportion that rose to three-quarters for those ages thirty-five and younger or with shorter tenures. If separation trends continue, by 2025 this would represent more than 100,000 staff leaving their organizations, or as much as half of the governmental public health workforce in total. Given the likelihood of increasing outbreaks and future global pandemics, strategies to improve recruitment and retention must be prioritized.

Implementation of a Nationwide Knowledge-Based COVID-19 Contact Tracing Training Program, 2020.

In the United States, the public health response to control COVID-19 required rapid expansion of the contact tracing workforce from approximately 2200 personnel prepandemic to more than 100 000 during the pandemic. We describe the development and implementation of a free nationwide training course for COVID-19 contact tracers that launched April 28, 2020, and summarize participant characteristics and evaluation findings through December 31, 2020. Uptake of the online asynchronous training was substantial: 90 643 registrants completed the course during the first 8 months. In an analysis of a subset of course participants (n = 13 697), 7724 (56.4%) reported having no prepandemic public health experience and 7178 (52.4%) reported currently serving as case investigators, contact tracers, or both. Most participants who completed a course evaluation reported satisfaction with course utility (94.8%; 59 497 of 62 753) and improved understanding of contact tracing practice (93.0%; 66 107 of 71 048). These findings suggest that the course successfully reached the intended audience of new public health practitioners. Lessons learned from this implementation indicate that an introductory course level is appropriate for a national knowledge-based training that aims to complement jurisdiction-specific training. In addition, offering a range of implementation options can promote course uptake among public health agency staff. This course supported the emerging needs of the public health practice community by training a workforce to fill an important gap during the COVID-19 pandemic and could serve as a feasible model for enhancing workforce knowledge for future and ongoing public health threats.

Variation Among Public Health Interventions in Initial Efforts to Prevent and Control the Spread of COVID-19 in the 50 States, 29 Big Cities, and the District of Columbia.

US states and big cities acted to protect the residents of their jurisdictions from the threat of SARS-CoV-2 infection and reduce COVID-19 transmission. As there were no known pharmacologic interventions to prevent COVID-19 at the outset of the pandemic, public health and elected leaders implemented a host of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to slow the spread of the virus. This article discusses variation among states and cities in their implementation of 3 NPIs: stay-at-home/shelter-in-place orders, gathering restrictions, and mask mandates. We illustrate how frequently each was used by states and big cities, discuss state and local authorities to implement such interventions, and consider how these NPIs and accompanying public adherence to public health orders may vary considerably in different regions of the country and by local and state laws specific to state preemption of public health authority.

COVID-19 Case Investigation and Contact Tracing: Early Lessons Learned and Future Opportunities.

CONTEXT: Case investigation and contact tracing are fundamental public health strategies for controlling and preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Although the principles behind these strategies are not new, the capacity and operational requirements needed to support disease investigation during the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic are unprecedented. This article analyzes the implementation of case investigation and contact tracing in controlling COVID-19 transmission during the early stages of the US pandemic response (January 20 through August 31, 2020). PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION: Governmental public health agencies mobilized to expand case investigation and contact tracing programs in the early months of the pandemic. In doing so, they encountered a range of challenges that included rapidly scaling up the workforce; developing and subsequently revising guidance and protocols specific to COVID-19 as more was learned about the virus over time; defining job functions; encouraging public acceptance of and participation in case investigation and contact tracing; and assessing the utility of these activities during both the containment and mitigation phases of outbreak response. COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing programs presented an array of opportunities for health departments to innovate, especially around technology to support public health efforts, as well as opportunities to address health equity and advance community resilience. CONCLUSION: Lessons learned from disease intervention specialists, guidance and resources from federal agencies and national partners, and peer-to-peer exchange of promising practices can support jurisdictions encountering early implementation challenges. Further research is needed to assess COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing program models and innovations, as well as strategies for implementing these activities during containment and mitigation phases.

Containing COVID-19 Through Contact Tracing : A Local Health Agency Approach.

Containing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) through case investigation and contact tracing is a crucial strategy for governmental public health agencies to control the spread of COVID-19 infection in the United States. Because of the recency of the pandemic, few examples of COVID-19 contact-tracing models have been shared among local, state, and federal public health officials to date. This case study of the Anne Arundel County Department of Health (Maryland) illustrates one model of contact-tracing activity developed early in the outbreak. We describe the contact-tracing effort's place within the broader county health agency Incident Command System, as well as the capabilities needed, team composition, special considerations, and major lessons learned by county health officials. Other local, state, tribal, territorial, and federal health officials and policy makers can use this case study to innovate, iterate, and further refine contact-tracing efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection and support community members in isolation or quarantine.