Strengthening public health infrastructure, workforce, and data systems in state and local health departments - washington state department of health (DOH) serves a population of 7,738,692 people in…

Strengthening public health infrastructure, workforce, and data systems in state and local health departments - washington state department of health (DOH) serves a population of 7,738,692 people in 39 counties. (this includes king county, population 2,274,315.) in response to the "strengthening U.S. Public health infrastructure, workforce, and data systems" notice of funding opportunity, washington DOH proposes the following activities during the 2022-2027 period of performance: - under strategy A1 workforce: use workforce data and establish data-driven quality improvement routines across the employee support and development ecosystem, developing processes and plans that stress equity, training, belonging, and retention. - under strategy A2 foundational capabilities: address the state's capacity for emergency preparedness and response as the state moves out of covid-19 pandemic recovery and into greater resilience and preparedness, ensure the state has sufficient resources to prepare an equity-focused washington state health improvement plan, build upon the state's foundational capabilities by emphasizing policy communications, and create a strategic financial investments team. - under strategy A3 data modernization: building on the work conducted as part of the CDC epidemiology and laboratory capacity for prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases (ELC) data modernization initiative (DMI) tier 1 funding, DOH will continue its focus on assessment and GAP analysis, refine data infrastructure and workforce plans, and implement the plans with partners and with staff hired using this funding. Additionally, as part of strategy A1, washington DOH will be partnering with local health jurisdictions to form a statewide workforce taskforce for washington's public health system, and collaborate with a wide variety of public health, academic, tribal, and community partners and coalitions. The outcomes of this work will determine investments at the local level and across the system to support system wide approaches. Using data-driven implementation and decision-making, robust partnerships, and a focus on equity, DOH will achieve the following key outcomes by the end of the period of performance: - strategy A1 workforce: increased hiring of diverse staff and increased size and capabilities of the public health workforce with improved wages and protections. - strategy A2 foundational capabilities: improved organizational systems and processes and evidence of stronger public health foundational capabilities. - strategy A3 data modernization: a more modern and efficient data environment, increased data interoperability, and increased availability and use of public health data. All three strategies will work toward the long-term outcomes of accelerated prevention, preparedness, and response to emerging threats; and improved other public health outcomes. Washington has already made bold strides toward assessing areas of opportunities in our public health system and exploring how to strengthen these areas to benefit the health of all washingtonians. The work begun over the last several years, the infrastructure-related funding DOH has received since the start of the pandemic, and our agency-wide plans all dovetail with the goals of this CDC funding opportunity and the response we have outlined in this application. This new "strengthening U.S. Public health infrastructure, workforce, and data systems" funding will add a total of 56 ftes at DOH during the period of performance and put into place a number of strategic initiatives; however, the impact on local health jurisdictions and on the state's public health system and infrastructure for years to come will be even more substantial.