981: CDC‘s PHIG Perspective

SUMMER JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Tuesday, September 2, 2025. I'm Summer Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

This morning, another installment of the PHIG Impact Report: a segment that showcases the Public Health Infrastructure Grant, otherwise known as PHIG, and how your colleagues across the nation are using it. Today, Sara Patterson joins Public Health Review Morning Edition. Patterson is the acting director of CDC's Public Health Infrastructure Center

Director Patterson, we've talked to many state health officials about their view of PHIG, but I'd love to hear from your perspective, how you see the Public Health Infrastructure Grant as a whole.

SARA PATTERSON: 

It's a five-year program that we initiated a couple of years ago. We're in year three of five to really build public health infrastructure and capacity across the country. I think the idea of it when we started to create it was really innovative, and that it allowed for flexible funding to address the infrastructure capacity of jurisdictions. And I think that that was really exciting, because a lot of times our funding comes in in very categorical ways, so you can only deal with one disease area or one condition. And this allows us to really work with jurisdictions to build support across those disease areas and really undergird what the system needs to have, the people, the services, and the systems that they need to be effective, and to really be able to pivot when issues arise that maybe they don't have categorical funding for, or where they really need to build something new or different. So, I think it's exciting because it allows for innovation, but it also allows jurisdictions to do what they need to do. It's flexible, so that they can say, okay, in our context, this is what's important to us, and that's what we're going to focus on. And I think giving that support to the jurisdictions to meet their own needs is really critical for this program.

JOHNSON: 

The whole point of this segment is that we're able to showcase success stories from our colleagues across the country. I'm sure you've heard a few in your work. Any that stand out?

PATTERSON: 

Recently, I had the opportunity to go to the Tulsa Health Department as part of a tribal visit that I did out in Oklahoma, and one of the things that was really exciting to hear from them about the way that they've used their PHIG money. First, they made their entry to their organization, ADA-compliant, so they have this beautiful, welcoming entry for the community to come in and feel like they're coming to a place that's welcoming and safe and going to be helpful to them. And so, it just creates, like, a really good environment. And then they used a lot of their funding to do workforce development activities. So, they've been doing all kinds of like series and seminars for their staff, really helping their staff through lots of change that's happening in public health. And also, they have these great data on their workforce numbers and how they want to address issues that they're identifying through their data. They're doing stay surveys and all kinds of things. And I think that that focus on workforce is a really unique and interesting aspect of PHIG that a lot of other types of programs can't do. So, it was very exciting to see that it's really helped to basically bolster and support everything that they do across their health department is being able to focus on some of these underlying pieces that otherwise they wouldn't have had money to do.

JOHNSON: 

Foundational capabilities are a priority, as well. Can you elaborate on what that means?

PATTERSON: 

When I think about foundational capabilities, I think of all the things that you need to run your organization, or to run the health department. So, data is a part of that. Workforce is a part of that, but it's also more things. It's all of the other processes and systems. It could be grants management, it could be a focus on looking at data to drive action more broadly across different areas. If you think about, like the 10 essential public health services, or some of the areas that are supported through, like the public health accreditation process, it really supports all of those things, so, it works across disease areas. I know I've said that a few times, but that's, I think, one of the most important things is it allows you to say, 'Okay, well, we've got gaps in epi or we've got gaps in communication, or we need to really build capacity in data analytics.' And foundational capabilities are really the ability to look across all of those things. 'What are like the suite of services and activities and capacities that I need in my health department, and how do I make sure that I can build those and build them out in a way that's going to support everything else that we do?'

JOHNSON: 

How would you say PHIG has improved collaboration for funded health department recipients to improve infrastructure?

PATTERSON: 

I think there's a few things. One is we fund three national partner organizations that provide technical assistance and coordination across all of the recipients, and they also have sub-awardees that they work with. So, they're bringing in not only their expertise as national organizations that represent and support the public health system, but then they also bring in experts that help in other ways. I think that's really critical a lot of times. What CDC has historically done is either through CDC staff or through some sort of like separate mechanism we provide technical assistance or Centers of Excellence or things like that. But what this mechanism does is it allows us to have both the jurisdictional funding and the partner support in one mechanism that brings all of this together and really allows us to learn from and build on what's happening in the jurisdictions, what are the national organizations hearing in terms of themes that are coming up? They have tons of technical assistance that they do. They have a system that they bring in, I think last year alone, in 2024 they did like, 200 technical assistance engagements. And what that technical assistance allows them to do is not only support the jurisdictions for what they're requesting, but also see thematically what's coming up, and where do they need to pivot or create resources or bring in expertise, because it's something that others are challenged with.

JOHNSON: 

Finally, let's look to the future. What is CDC's vision for PHIG over the next two years?

PATTERSON: 

What excites me about kind of the next two years of the PHIG are a couple of things. One is we're going to be coming into our last two years of this- of this current five-year funding cycle. Because this is the first time we've done this, and this is the first way that we've done this type of grant-making, I think we have a lot to learn about what worked well, what the challenges were, so that we can build our next five-year funding opportunity in a way that's going to really meet the needs of jurisdictions, of the partners of the field overall. So, I'm excited about that, because I think this is a great opportunity for us to kind of get started on that planning based on all the feedback that we've gotten. The President's budget for 2026 included funding for the infrastructure and capacity line, which is what supports the PHIG, so I'm excited that there's, you know, administration support for the continued work. But then also, we saw the Senate markup included funding for this work too, so the appropriation process still has to play out for 2026, but I'm hopeful that that work will continue, and I think that what, what I'm seeing from what the PHIG story has told us, is that there's just a lot of opportunity for us to talk about the importance of infrastructure in really making the public health system work.

JOHNSON: 

I know we're all appreciative of PHIG and the work your team has done and continues to do to make those dollars work for us and, in turn, our communities. Thanks so much for your time, Director Patterson.

You can learn more about the Public Health Infrastructure Grant and how it supports vital public health programs across the country by visiting the PHIG website. We have a link to that in the show notes.

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