1059: Charting the Next Four Years: Inside ASTHO’s 2026–2029 Strategic Plan

JOHN SHEEHAN: 

This is Public Health Review Morning Edition for Wednesday, January 28, 2026. I'm John Sheehan for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Today, we discuss ASTHO's 2026-2029 Strategic Plan with ASTHO CEO, Dr. Joseph Kanter. He'll explain how the plan was developed, why now was the right time for a refresh, and walk us through the plan itself, from the shifting public health landscape that created the need for the plan, and the four pillars that comprise it.

JOSEPH KANTER: 

This was a great milestone for ASTHO. We took about a year to go through the strategic planning process, and a couple things stood out. We were very interested at the forefront of this process, of having a highly inclusive process. So through that, we reached out to all types of stakeholders. We reached out to ASTHO alumni, former state health officials, we reached out to our affiliates, our close partners. We reached out to partners, both within and outside of government. We certainly reached out to our board and and within our own team as well. We really tried to have as many voices and viewpoints as possible to help inform where we as ASTHO, want to go over the next four years. The product which we launched earlier this month. Our strategic plan will take us through the end of 2029 it lays out where we think astho as an organization and public health at large can have an impact and ultimately help make people's lives healthier, make people's lives better, given the current context, we're really excited to embark on this work, and we feel it's a great place for ASTHO to be right now.

SHEEHAN: 

And could you talk a little bit about sort of the need to refresh these strategic plans? I don't think it's obvious necessarily, that these plans do go through iterations and they change over time. Can you talk a little bit about how this process is designed to meet today's needs, rather than past iterations?

KANTER: 

One of the things that struck us at the beginning of this process is how much the public health landscape has changed over the past five years or so, and continues to change quite rapidly. We've gone through a pandemic, we've gone through a change in administration. We've gone through various changing priorities and conversation shifts. All of that we feel presents an immense opportunity to provide value and ultimately help state health officials and the departments they lead do a better job in keeping their constituencies healthy. Our vision, the strategic vision for ASTHO that we coalesced around this plan, is optimal health for all in that we see the opportunity to help health departments meet folks where they are and capitalize on various opportunities coming out of the pandemic, it's perilous time for public health, and then we've had a lot of changes over the past year, but there are a lot of opportunities in there. One of the things that I think is true of public health is we sometimes get in the rut of doing the same thing the same way, and this plan for us is an opportunity to challenge ourselves, to get out of that, to think, what are we leaving on the table? What can we do a better job of? And ultimately, how can we exert leadership in this process?

SHEEHAN: 

And this plan was developed with sort of four main tenets, or four pillars in mind. Can you talk about those four pillars and maybe how they work together.

KANTER: 

You know, three of the pillars of this plan are outward facing, and the fourth is internal facing. I'll spend a second going through the four pillars because they're important to us. The first is public health leadership and working to help elevate state health officials and empower them to exert leadership in a rapidly changing public health landscape, we find that even as public trust varies and there's all types of threats in that space, folks really do trust their lead public health official who's on the news all the time talking about health threats within that jurisdiction and has The support of that state's infrastructure, we want to help those state health officials exert leadership in the most effective means possible, particularly as the field of public health is shifting so rapidly. So we're going to put concerted effort into making sure that health officials have everything they need to exert leadership during these changing times. The second pillar is health department capacity and innovation, with a concerted focus on health IT and the data modernization space. This space is changing so quickly, and it has too often been the case that in government in general, but particularly, we in public health, we're behind the eight ball when technology changes. We want state health departments to lead in this area, so we'll be putting work towards building capacity and helping state health departments innovate in this space. The third pillar is expanded partnerships, and we feel there's a lot of opportunity for public health to partner strategically with entities that have not been traditional partners of public health, and this could be governmental entities. It could be non-governmental entities. We're particularly interested in helping state health departments broker beneficial partnerships with the private world. As we've learned the past year, there is an immense appetite in this country to improve the lives of people, to make people's lives healthier, to help give people healthier choices to make. And the private world has a big role to play in this, and has a lot of interest in that. We see a big opportunity to help explore what mutually beneficial partnerships in this area can look like, particularly with private entities. And the fourth pillar is more internal-looking. It's it's our own operations within asto and sustainability, like everyone else, I think we fall victim sometimes to being stagnant, and as we look at the other three pillars that I just mentioned, we recognized within ask, though, that we have some own work to do on our end, some cleaning up to do on our end, and how we organize ourselves As a organization, how we ensure our own organization's stability and sustainability, and so the fourth pillar will direct us to do that hard work internally to make sure that ASTHO is a strong, resilient and sustainable organization in the years ahead.

SHEEHAN: 

And could you talk a little bit about the tension between planning for now versus sort of trying to future-proof it, and, you know, shoot for where you're going?

KANTER: 

You know, that's the challenge right there. And speaking as a former state health official, you know, you do your best job making plans, and then you wake up, and then there's a new fire to put out. And we saw that with big fires like the pandemic. But for folks that have experience working in government, there's, you know, 100 fires to put out before lunch on any given day. You know, I'm reminded of the Mike Tyson quote that everyone's got a plan until they're punched in the teeth, that said it's important to put pen to paper of what you want to do over the medium and long term as an organization, it's important to us to structure ourselves around aspirational goals that's important to us, to involve stakeholders in that process and ultimately set a vision. That doesn't mean that there won't be hiccups or distractions along the way, but we feel that this is an incredibly pivotal time for public health, but one with so much opportunity. I mean, the issues of health and wellness are at the forefront of the public's attention in a way that they've just never been before. They weren't even to that extent during the pandemic. There's a lot of opportunity in there. And so even though we know there will be distractions and unforeseen challenges, it's really important to us to try and set a vision of where we want to go as an organization, and to paint the picture of what we think is possible in the public health space.

SHEEHAN: 

And along those lines, finally, could you talk a little bit more about that, that mission statement that you mentioned earlier, the optimal health for all? What does that mean to you?

KANTER: 

You know, the reason why this vision, optimal health for all, spoke to us so clearly is it's so, it's so universally relatable, and you talk to folks in the community, everyone has things that they think they could do to be healthier, to improve their own wellness. That is probably the one fundamental universal truth that we all share. And at the end of the day, when you engage with folks working within state and territorial health departments, from the health official, from the lead all the way down the org chart. It's that one vision that is shared by everyone. It's why folks show up to work, ultimately, is to help make the lives of other people in their community better. So we wanted to put that front and center and try and focus everything we do to that ultimate goal of helping folks lead a better, healthier life.

SHEEHAN: 

Dr. Joseph Kanter is chief executive officer at ASTHO.

National overdose trends indicate the need for a comprehensive public health approach that encompasses primary prevention of substance use, overdose and mortality, prevention, monitoring and surveillance, and access to treatment and recovery services. ASTHO provides capacity building and technical assistance for state and territorial health agencies in these areas to build strong public health leadership for substance use, prevention, and surveillance, establish effective multidisciplinary partnerships, and support the implementation of policies that are informed by evidence. Find more at the link in the show notes.

This has been Public Health Review Morning Edition. I'm John Sheehan for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.