Strengthening illinois's public health administration (sipa) - the illinois department of public health (idph), a public health accreditation board (phab)-accredited state health department, seeks…

Strengthening illinois's public health administration (sipa) - the illinois department of public health (idph), a public health accreditation board (phab)-accredited state health department, seeks funding as part of component a of the centers for disease control and prevention (CDC)'s opportunity, strengthening U.S. Public health infrastructure, workforce, and data systems [CDC-RFA-OE22-2203]. The proposed grant program, "strengthening illinois's public health administration" (sipa) will serve idph's public health jurisdiction, which is the state of illinois, the sixth-most populous state in the nation with 12.7 million residents. With an annual budget of $2.9 billion in state and federal funds, seven regional offices, three laboratories, and about 1,200 employees, idph deploys over 200 different programs that affect the lives, health, and wellbeing of residents across the state. Illinois also has 97 idph-certified local health departments that serve 99.8% of the state's population in 100 of 102 counties with a range of services. Two years of responding to covid-19 and the additional public health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic amplified critical public health infrastructure needs in illinois. As of july 25, 2022, there have been 3,542,799 total cases of covid-19 and 34,319 covid-19 deaths in illinois. According to CDC data as of july 22, 2022, the burden of covid-19 cases in illinois (27,959 per 100,000 population) was higher than three of the five surrounding states. There is a total of 742 health professional shortage areas (hpsas) in illinois among the three combined disciplines: 272 primary care, 247 dental health, and 223 mental health. These and other outcomes disproportionately affected certain communities in illinois, including urban and rural communities, and communities of color. Dating back to before the covid-19 pandemic, illinois also faced significant disparities in health outcomes, including in social and economic conditions, such as unemployment, and exposure to environmental toxicants, and in mortality, such as violence-related and drug overdose deaths. Against this backdrop, the state and local public health system in illinois faced critical challenges in public health infrastructure, including a shrinking workforce, an unrepresentative workforce, underfunded foundational services, increasing staff burnout and attrition, leadership turnover, and limited opportunities for workforce development. Idph proposes to increase partnerships to create pipelines into positions, retain the workforce through efforts to reduce employee burnout, provide staff with training opportunities to enhance their skill set, and offer more opportunities for employee engagement. In addition, idph plans to make improvement in fiscal systems and grant-making, invest in a department-wide quality improvement system and increase our ability to analyze data through an equity lens to make programmatic decisions. Further, idph intends to plan and implement steps to restructure those systems to integrate the latest technologies and approaches to accelerate public health surveillance. Lastly, idph will dedicate 40% of funding to local health departments that have not received funding from this grant. Acknowledging the current public health landscape in illinois, idph proposes to leverage CDC funding to improve the state and local public health workforce, foundational services, and data systems. Idph will invest in its workforce to create pipelines into positions, retain existing employees through efforts to reduce burnout, and provide a variety of training opportunities to improve workforce skills. Idph will invest in foundational capabilities to improve grant-making, develop a department-wide quality improvement system, and increase the ability to use data through an equity lens to make programmatic decisions. Idph will invest in data modernization to restructure legacy systems to integrate the latest technologies and approache