TFAH Releases Report on Public Health Funding, Declares Crisis
The Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) issued a report entitled A Funding Crisis for Public Health and Safety this week which found that inflation-adjusted funding for disease prevention and health promotion programs has declined by approximately $580 million at the federal level and has remained flat in states since 2010. Notable findings of the report include:
- Approximately 75 percent of CDC’s funds go to supporting state and local public health programs;
- Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) core funding for states and localities has been cut by more than one-third per year since the program was established in FY 2002; and
- Only $4 per person per year is spent on chronic disease prevention activities at CDC.
The report also details per capita CDC state funding, of which California receives $19.61 per person and ranks 38th in the United States. TFAH outlines a handful of funding recommendations to adequately address public health and safety at the federal, state, and local levels, such as modernizing the public health system to address gaps in critical infrastructure, creating a standing Public Health Emergency Fund for immediate use when new threats arise, and expanding the use of evidence-based, high impact strategies to improve community health. The full report is available here.