Public Health Institute

Public Health Institute, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization headquartered in Oakland, California, operates primarily as a prime recipient and contractor for federal research grants, epidemiological studies, health surveillance programs, and public health workforce capacity-building initiatives across the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other HHS agencies. The organization competes in the full-and-open federal market without set-aside designations.

PHI's customer base concentrates heavily within HHS. The National Cancer Institute leads by far—46 awards carrying $1.14 billion in combined potential value—followed by the CDC Pittsburgh division (23 awards, $4.6 million), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (27 awards), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (18 awards), and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (7 awards, $2.4 million). These five entities account for a substantial majority of the organization's federal funding pipeline. The split between volume and dollars reveals that the NCI dominates the funding landscape on both metrics; CDC and NIH-housed institutes supply numerous smaller awards focused on epidemiological research, surveillance, and workforce training.

Across the federal contract and grant portfolio, PHI demonstrates significant research and development capacity. Representative prime contract work includes a $1.621 million definitive contract with CDC Pittsburgh to develop and evaluate a train-the-trainer program for respiratory protective device use (ultimate completion September 2027, with FY2024 reporting of 1.5 FTEs across 3,034 contractor hours, self-performed), a $1.295 million CDC contract to develop regional public health emergency preparedness and response workplans for HHS Region 9 (performance through September 2024), and a $535 thousand NICHD incumbency award for multipurpose prevention technology database access and maintenance (through September 2026). Representative grant work includes a $560 thousand project grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (CFDA 93.273) examining the relationship between spirits consumption and alcohol-related mortality (completion August 2030), a $542 thousand National Institute on Drug Abuse project grant (CFDA 93.279) assessing cannabis use in sober living houses (completion March 2031), and a $282 thousand NIAAA project grant on blood alcohol content limit laws and public health outcomes (CFDA 93.273, completion August 2027). Grant work also spans environmental health, pediatric wellness, asthma management, substance abuse prevention, and cancer surveillance. PHI operates as recipient under cooperative agreements with EPA (Regional Asthma Management and Prevention, through September 2027), ATSDR (Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units National Program Office, through August 2027), and CDC (environmental health tracking and modernization, through July 2027). The organization held a legacy foreign assistance cooperative agreement with the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs that terminated in 2025. AmeriCorps National Direct grants (2024-2027) support PHI's CivicSpark and related resilience-building programs.

On federal contract vehicles, PHI maintains positions on the HHS HHSN261201300014I indefinite delivery contract (9 task orders, $15.8 million combined potential value) and participates in the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results IDIQ (4 task orders, $45.7 million). NAICS concentration spans research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (15 awards), administrative and management consulting (14 awards), and professional and technical services (8 awards). PSC coding reflects health R&D, special studies and analysis of scientific data, and support services.

Recent activity shows strong growth through 2024 (47 awards), followed by a decline to 21 awards in 2025 and only 5 through mid-2026 in the source snapshot. This trajectory suggests potential recompete cliff exposure: 26 awards carrying $47.2 million in combined potential value reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months. The organization's SCI-reported invoiced revenue across federal service contracts above the $150 thousand threshold totaled $4 million in FY2022, $4.3 million in FY2023, and $5.4 million in FY2024 (a partial view excluding grants, goods, and much of PHI's research portfolio). Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable prime service contracts ranged from around $39/hr at the tenth percentile to $139/hr at the ninety-fifth percentile, with a median near $82/hr. FY2024 SCI records reflect 153 FTEs across prime and sub engagements; PHI performed essentially all work self-delivered, with minimal subcontractor hours. The organization subcontracts to research primes including Research Triangle Institute (alcohol policy research), Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (cannabis policy and health outcomes analysis), University of California San Francisco (environmental health chemistry and biomonitoring), Georgetown University (cancer patient-reported outcomes), and American Sustainable Business Institute (regenerative agriculture and food systems work). PHI also serves as a subrecipient under numerous NIH and SAMHSA prime grants, particularly in Children's Oncology Group programs, wherein PHI provides data management, registry operations, and statistical support.