488: PH Workforce Consortium, Maternal Health Disparities

JANSON SILVERS: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Wednesday, August 23, 2023. I'm Janson Silvers. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

JP LEIDER: 

We've had folks doing this research for a very long time, but we've never had a health workforce research center to focus these efforts.

SILVERS: 

A new group is working to address the issues with the public health workforce. J.P. Leider tells us about the Consortium for Workforce Research and Public Health, of which he is a part of.

LEIDER: 

It's a consortium of six schools and universities of public health and ten partners that are practice partners and membership organizations, folks on the ground doing public health, that come together to identify the biggest issues facing the public health workforce, research them, and then get those findings out into the field.

SILVERS: 

Leider says a study of recruitment, retention, and succession is long overdue.

LEIDER: 

For over 15 years, we've seen this need for growth in the public health workforce, but an actual numeric decline. The Great Recession hit the public health workforce really hard. We lost like 40,000 people since the start of the Great Recession. And it never really recovered, even though the rest of the public sector did. And we've seen lots of different strategies to try and handle that.

SILVERS: 

Leider also says this consortium is needed because while the workforce is dealing with significant challenges, more are still to come.

LEIDER: 

The recession hit CDC very hard. They're expecting at least a 10% budget cut. And that's going to kind of flow down to everybody at the state, local, tribal, and territorial levels. I'm not sure how it's going to affect everybody on the ground. But we now have this time where we were expecting these increases and this focus on the public health workforce, per se, which is very exciting. I know people are still working through the public health infrastructure grant program.

SILVERS: 

You can find more information on the Consortium for Workforce Research and Public Health by using the link in the show notes.

$3.5 million in grant funding is headed to the Healthy Women Healthy Families initiative in New Jersey. Nancy Scotto-Rosato with the New Jersey Department of Health says the work focuses on improving maternal and infant health outcomes for black and Hispanic populations.

NANCY SCOTTO-ROSATO: 

This work is important because New Jersey has one of the worst racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and infant mortality. A black mother in New Jersey is seven times more likely than a white mother to die of pregnancy-related complications. And a black baby is about three times more likely than a white baby to die before their first birthday.

SILVERS: 

The numbers for Hispanic populations aren't much better. The good news is so far the program has seen success.

SCOTTO-ROSATO: 

This initiative has definitely contributed to the changing maternal health in New Jersey. The success of Healthy Women Healthy Families in the last five years has led to a relaunching of this initiative for another five years.

SILVERS: 

For other programs looking to achieve similar results, Rosato says you have to take stock of your entire surroundings.

SCOTTO-ROSATO: 

There also has to be sort of an understanding of their variation that exists geographically and demographically across their state and territory, and to really assess what works and doesn't work.

SILVERS: 

Also, today, we know that American Indian and Alaska Native populations experience large health disparities. An episode of the Public Health Review podcast dives in. O'Keyla Cooper has more.

O'KEYLA COOPER: 

Tune in to the latest episode of Public Health Review, as experts discuss health disparities in American Indian and Alaska Native populations. Learn about data driven policies, community-focused care, and efforts to improve the well-being of American Indian and Alaska Native mothers and infants. You can listen to the full segment by clicking the link in the show notes.

SILVERS: 

Finally, today, make sure to sign up for ASTHO's Legislative Health Alerts so you can stay informed on the movement from Capitol Hill and in states across the US. There are a lot of policy developments that affect your everyday work, and ASTHO wants you to know about it. Use the link in the show notes to sign up.

And if you have a minute, please take the time to give us a review. We'd like to know what you think.

That'll do it for today's newscast. We're back tomorrow morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Janson Silvers. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.