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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Wendi L. Siebold, MA, MPH, Todd Rogers, PhD, and Dianne C. Barker, MHS. Turning Point National Evaluation, Public Health Institute, 1752 NW Market Street #402, Seattle, WA 98107, 206-962-0260, wendi.lyn1@gmail.com

Leadership and workforce development, and improvements in the delivery of essential public health services are often the focus of local and state public health planning efforts. This study examined how six states employed strategies to help improve their public health leadership, develop their workforce, and enhance the delivery of essential services during the period 2000-2004. Data were collected as part of the independent evaluation of the Turning Point (TP) Initiative, a national demonstration program to improve public heath infrastructure funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Semi-structured telephone interviews or web-based surveys were completed by 86 state and local-level public health officials in three TP states (Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma), and three non-TP comparison states (Idaho, Tennessee, Vermont).

Over the evaluation period, TP states showed a greater degree of improvement in the delivery of essential services than did comparison states. TP utilized various distinguishing strategies to expand and institutionalize essential services, including local assessments and specific contract requirements. TP states also sought diversified funding sources for workforce and leadership development, while comparison states tended to rely more heavily on categorical emergency preparedness funding. Similarly, progress in public health leadership within TP states was significantly related to improvements in the delivery of all ten essential services, whereas leadership development in comparison states was related only to those essential services most closely tied to emergency preparedness. These and other similar findings show that TP has had an impact on public health planning and improvement efforts that may have long-term sustainability implications.

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