Austin Public Health (APH) is seeking the financial support available through the Strengthening U.S. Public Health Infrastructure, Workforce, and Data Systems Funding Opportunity (CDC-RFA-OE22-2203) to ensure that the local health entities serving Travis and Williamson counties in Texas can address their critical public health infrastructure needs. Through the implementation of activities under strategy A1 (workforce) and strategy A2 (foundational capabilities), APH and its subrecipients will hire, retain, support, and train their public health workforce and will strengthen the accountability measures and organizational competencies needed to allow for even better service provision and community partnerships.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the value of having experienced staff who are trained and prepared to respond to public health emergencies. Adequately trained public health personnel protect and promote health, more readily identify and address health disparities in the course of their work, and allow for a rapid response to health emergencies. As a result, under strategy A1 (workforce), APH and its subrecipients intend to focus on workforce retention through efforts that address gaps in pay, expand training opportunities, strengthen performance management, and ensure that staff are incentivized to continue to grow within the public health system. Additionally, APH and its subrecipients will implement hiring practices aimed at recruiting qualified staff whose backgrounds reflect the populations they serve and maximize the level of diversity within the public health workforce. In the long term, APH and its sub-recipients will conduct workforce evaluations aimed positioning public health to be an employer of choice among competitive candidates. These efforts include assessing the current capacity of the local public health workforce, developing a competitive strategy, and coordinating the organizational changes required to execute.
Under strategy A2 (foundational capabilities), APH and its subrecipients will continue the activities that led them to successful accreditation by the Public Health Accreditation Board and will deepen their investment in performance management by continuing to seek reaccreditation. Additionally, APH and its subrecipients will strengthen their competencies by modernizing their IT infrastructure and allowing for a data systems infrastructure that allows data related to workforce recruitment, human resources, and fiscal data to be integrated, accessible, and available for use in decision-making, forecasting, and strategic planning.
