 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Peggy Honore', MHA, Director, Public Health Finance Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Hwy, Mail Stop K-39, Atlanta, GA 30341, 770-488-8053, pmh4@cdc.gov and Walter J. Jones, PhD, Department of Health Administration and Policy, Medical University of South Carolina, 171 Ashley Avenue, Charleston, SC 29425.
Public health agencies currently do not systematically relate funding to performance. As part of an ongoing effort to identify innovative methods for public health financial analysis, a pathbreaking study is being conducted to investigate for correlations between local (county) public health agency funding levels and public health system performance capacity. Financial data from 50 local public health agencies in a mid-western state have been collected and correlated with individual agency performance scores as measured by the Local Public Health System (LPHS) Performance Assessment Instrument. Analyzed county variables include LPHS scores, local revenues, state and federal revenues, total and per capita revenues and expenditures, tax dollars per capita, and population.
Study results document the challenges that public health agencies face in developing financial systems that contribute to enhance management techniques. The relationship between expenditures and public health outcomes are complex and difficult to understand. The study documents the need for public health agencies to categorize expenditure data by the 10 Essential Public Health Services as recommended by Health People 2010 goal #23-16, so that they might be better able to perform thorough public health financial analysis and investigate relationships between financial investment and performance capacity. The study also highlights the necessity to compile databases of comprehensive public health financial data and notes the potential political and policy system challenges that would-be public health finance reformers face at the state and federal levels.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Financing, Fiscal Policy
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.