Local impact of changes to federal funding for public health emergency preparedness activities

The National Association of County and City Health Officials will conduct two surveys in early 2007 on the local impact of changes in federal funding grants for public health emergency preparedness activities. State health departments sustained a 12% cut in their CDC Cooperative Agreement grants for emergency preparedness between FY05 and FY06, and funding was also diverted from this grant stream to create a separate funding stream for the Cities Readiness Initiative. Also, in 2006, state health departments received a supplemental emergency grant for pandemic influenza preparedness planning, which is being distributed in 3 phases. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these changes have had a significant impact on the amount of money local health departments receive for preparedness activities, as well as an impact on expectations and deliverables from both the state and federal government. Two separate surveys will be administered to a sample of local health departments, and a sample of State Association of County and City Health Official (SACCHO) representatives respectively. The results of these surveys are intended to provide more solid evidence of the positive and negative impact of these changes to federal funding for local public health preparedness efforts.