Harris County Public Health: CDC Public Health Infrastructure, Workforce, & Data Systems Grant - Harris County Public Health (HCPH) is the local health department that provides comprehensive health services and programs to nearly 2.5 million people spread across over 30 municipalities located in Harris County. Through its core values of innovation, engagement, and health equity, the organization strives to bring meaningful and impactful solutions to public health issues to promote a healthy and vibrant populous in Harris County. This project (CDC-RFA-OE22-2203, Strengthening U.S. Public Health Infrastructure, Workforce, and Data Systems) will enable HCPH to develop a robust workforce competent in providing the essential public health services and representative of the community it serves. Additionally, investments in its foundational capabilities, such as programmatic performance management - and the supporting data systems - are expected to lead to improved service quality and outcomes across the organization. Currently identified work under Strategy A1, aimed at building the public health workforce, includes implementing a learning and development unit at Harris County Public Health. This unit would lead the deployment of a tailored training track system, providing training and education relevant to staff from all levels across the agency. The learning and development unit will also be responsible for creating an individual performance and talent management system to further solidify the growth and long-term success of the HCPH workforce. Additionally, HCPH will conduct a Workforce Needs Assessment to develop a Workforce Improvement Plan that meets the needs of the HCPH workforce over the next five years. In recognizing the importance of community-based organizations in reaching the communities it serves, HCPH will also invest in building capacity with qualified community partners. Following Harris County policy, the department will conduct formal procurement activities to solicit capacity-building agreements between HCPH and CBOs on initiatives of shared interest. HCPH also aims to improve the foundational capabilities that enable the foundational areas of public health service. For example, through Strategy A2, HCPH will focus on investments in programmatic evaluations with academic partners and develop a programmatic performance management system that aligns with the individual performance management system proposed under Strategy A1. These two investments, among others, will help ensure that HCPH programs are meeting the community's needs most effectively, and the investments under Strategies A1 and A3 will support these outcomes. Lastly, HCPH seeks to modernize its data infrastructure and cultivate a data-first culture. Through a Data Modernization Assessment and by investing heavily in resources that support a modern centralized data team structure, HCPH will foster a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to data collection, analysis, and reporting. HCPH aims to put community health, operational, programmatic performance, and financial data in the hands of public health professionals and frontline staff to enable critical decisions that bring about measurable and meaningful results and improved outcomes for the population it serves.
