Transforming Public Health Systems: 21st Century States

With support from RWJF, three states (Ohio, Oregon and Washington) are participating in a learning community supported by the Public Health National Center for Innovations (PHNCI) that aims to test and implement the systems transformations required to ensure health equity. PHNCI has developed new resources to chronicle their progress.

A New Model for Public Health 

Transforming Public Health Systems: Stories from 21st Century States, Part II, chronicles the progress of three states toward building a new model for public health built on implementing a minimum package of foundational public health services that “must be available everywhere for the system to work anywhere.” Over the past year, the states’ collective successes have included: targeting legislators, educating policy-makers, engaging non-traditional partners, telling real-life public health stories, building bridges with clinical medicine, developing assessment tools, identifying opportunities for implementing cross-jurisdictional sharing, and taking on the role of chief health strategists in their communities in order to prevent death, disease and disability. The following stories capture highlights of the work underway in Ohio, Oregon and Washington as they move closer to their goal of building a 21st century public health system.