Engaging in public health policy development: Building a long-term care workforce

APHA's final approval of a policy culminates in a written statement, but where does the process begin? Many ways exist to answer this question, but two processes like occur: conceptualization and consensus building. In conceptualizing a potential policy, one begins with clear identification of the problem and its relevance to public health. The relevance of a problem to public health depends on several factors but one, in particular, is the ability to articulate the problem as a social versus individual one. With the problem clearly, defined one must consider the potential resources for developing a policy to address the problem. These resources include related policies at the appropriate level(s) (e.g., local, state, federal), existing information about possible levers to ameliorate the problem in the scientific and grey literatures, and networking to build consensus with colleagues, organizations, and government agencies. Engaging in these two processes, conceptualization and consensus building, one is poised to begin proposing a resolution the problem via the APHA policy process (see overview of this process in the Spring 2011 Aging & Public Health (APH) newsletter). To illustrate these two processes, the presenter will discuss conceptualization and consensus building around the problem of building a long-term care workforce to meet the chronic health care needs of aging society. More specifically, she will focus on challenges in building the paraprofessional workforce within the larger health care policy context. Discussion will include the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as it relates to building a public health workforce.