CDC Awards More Than $3 Billion to Improve U.S. Public Health Workforce and Infrastructure
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced plans to award $3.2 billion to help state, local, and territorial jurisdictions across the United States strengthen their public health workforce and infrastructure. The Strengthening U.S. Public Health Infrastructure, Workforce, and Data Systems Grant provides awards directly to health departments to support and expand the people, services, and systems needed to promote and protect health in U.S. communities. Everyone in the United States lives in a jurisdiction that will receive funding under this new grant.
“State, local, and territorial health departments are the heart of the U.S. public health system, and the COVID-19 pandemic severely stressed these agencies, which were already weakened by neglect and underinvestment,” said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, M.D., M.P.H. “This grant gives these agencies critical funding and flexibility to build and reinforce the nation’s public health workforce and infrastructure, and protect the populations they serve. We are meeting them where they are and trusting them to know what works best for their communities.”
The $3.2 billion includes $3 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act for jurisdictions to recruit, retain, and train their workforce, including critical frontline public health workers such as epidemiologists, contact tracers, laboratory scientists, community health workers, and data analysts. The funding also includes $140 million from a new appropriation for jurisdictions to strengthen and revitalize their public health infrastructure. Lastly, national partners will be awarded $65 million to provide training, evaluation, and other technical assistance to jurisdictions as they work to strengthen the services they provide and rebuild their workforce to help protect every American community.
Plans for using the funding are already underway in many states; Georgia, for example, is set to receive nearly $100 million that it plans to direct towards purchasing and upgrading medical records systems and data analytics capabilities.
To read the full press release, visit https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/p1129-cdc-infrastructure.html.