Jane Suen, DrPH MS, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway, Atlanta, GA 30341, 770-488-2463, jxs8@cdc.gov and Charles Magruder, MD, MPH, Public Health Practice Program Office, Centers for Disease Control, 4770 Buford Hwy, NE, MS-K39, Atlanta, GA 30341.

We describe data from two national surveys of local public health jurisdictions that have been conducted within the past 12 years: a 1992-1993 national profile of local health departments, a collaboration of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) and National Association of City and County Health Officials; and the 2000-2002 nationally conducted survey targeting the full population of all local public health jurisdictions, a collaboration of CDC and Department of Justice. We provide staffing level information from two national studies within this time period to facilitate future planning efforts on an essential public health topic. The 1992-1993 survey included responses from 2,079 of the Nation’s health departments collected between October 1992 and December 1993. The 2000-2002 survey respondents were from 2,007 local public health jurisdictions in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and 3 U.S. territories (American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico) collected between July 2000 and April 2002. We will discuss where the study methodologies differ as a caution to interpretations of trend data as well as where they are similar. We will present the data collected on staffing by number of employees, and distribution of staff size by population size of jurisdiction. In our recent study, we looked at staff size by overall and core functions performance scores. We observed that as the staffing levels increased, the mean summary performance scores increased. This may useful in future efforts to explore factors in the relationship between staffing levels and local public health performance.

Learning Objectives: Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to
• describe local public health jurisdiction, population, and staffing demographics currently, and a decade ago;
• discuss the differences and similarities in the study methodologies;
• relate the information from the only two national surveys conducted at the local level within this time period, to future planning and staffing development needs.

Keywords: Workforce, Planning

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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.