Wednesday, April 24, 2024
4/24/2024
In Los Angeles County, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to highlight the need for significant investments in our local public health workforce, infrastructure, and data systems. Strategic investments are critical to: broadening, repairing, and re-envisioning our existing public health infrastructure; improving overall efficiency and effectiveness of department operations; and building and retaining a skilled workforce for any future public health emergencies. STRATEGY A1 WORKFORCE Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LAC DPH) will leverage its existing infrastructure and community partnerships to sustain and enhance the capacity of its public health workforce to improve the health and well-being of our most vulnerable and often hard-to-reach residents. To ensure strategies are centered on community-identified priorities, LAC DPH will collaborate with local organizations to strengthen and expand the Los Angeles County public health workforce by hiring 157 staff across six main areas of work: Community Public Health Teams, Field and Outbreak Data Teams, Data Modernization, Operations, Communications, and Workforce Oversight and Evaluation. Two staff will be hired by the Pasadena Public Health Department (PPHD). Workforce expansion in each area will allow LAC DPH to better address inequities in chronic conditions, communicable disease, and other public health issues. STRATEGY A2 FOUNDATIONAL CAPABILITIES LAC DPH will strengthen our overall systems, processes, and policies to ensure the robust core infrastructure needed to protect health. Specifically, the Community Public Health Teams (CPHTs)—a multidisciplinary team of community-based organizations (CBOs), local health care partners, and LAC DPH—will address community-driven public health concerns and respond to emerging public health threats. Through the CPHTs, LAC DPH will extend our capabilities to conduct assessments, prepare for emergencies, implement equitable health policies, improve communications, enhance community partnerships, define performance metrics, and create a sustainable community health infrastructure that ensures accountability in our collective commitment to eliminating structural drivers of health inequities. LAC DPH’s Field and Outbreak Data Team will strengthen community partnerships, specifically with educational institutions, to create pathways into the public health workforce. Finally, the Field and Outbreak Data Team and the staff involved with our Data Modernization efforts will strengthen our organizational competencies in addressing information technology needs. STRATEGY A3 DATA MODERNIZATION LAC DPH is already developing and deploying scalable, flexible, and sustainable technologies, policies, and methods as part of our Data Modernization Initiative. These funds will specifically support the enhancement of various technical and analytic aspects of the Integrated Reporting Investigation and Surveillance System (IRIS), LAC DPH’s disease surveillance system, which has grown under COVID-19 and requires integration with other disease control systems. Resources will also support the new Information Management and Analytics Office (IMAO), charged with maintaining and expanding our existing data infrastructure to achieve an integrated data system and enterprise, with enhanced information management and analytic support, in alignment with LAC DPH’s mission and goals. PASADENA PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT The City of Pasadena is part of Los Angeles County but has jurisdictional authority to oversee its own public health department. As part of this grant, LAC DPH will provide a sub-award to the PPHD to include the City of Pasadena in our proposal (Long Beach DHHS is applying separately for this funding).Through the work of Pasadena’s Public Health Department, LAC DPH will support the regional expansion of the County’s public health workforce and strengthen Pasadena’s foundational capabilities to serve its residents.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
