The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #58669

Robert W. Prentice, PhD, Partnership for the Public's Health, Public Health Institute, 505 14th Street Suite 810, Oakland, CA 94612, 510-451-8600, bprentice@partnershipPH.org

Public health is caught in the middle of a paradox. On the one hand, bio-terrorism preparedness has occasioned the most significant federal investment in basic public health infrastructure for infectious disease control in decades. It has also occupied the time and attention of key state and local public health leaders and organizations throughout the nation. On the other hand, the great preponderance of the burden of disease is the result of chronic disease. Moreover, chronic disease prevention strategies rely less on the traditional science-based disciplines and occupations characteristic of public health and increasingly on broad partnerships with communities and other public and private organizations to address the social and environmental determinants of health. These prevention strategies force a re-thinking of the very notion of public health infrastructure, and of the policies that will be necessary to support it. This presentation will describe an effort on the part of a community-based public health initiative encompassing 14 local public health jurisdictions and 39 communities to develop and carry out an agenda for statewide public health policy change in California. The presentation will describe the political, administrative and professional challenges, as well as the strategies that have been employed to shift the focus of public health policy in the direction called for by the Institute of Medicine report on The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century.

Learning Objectives:

• Step 1: Participants will develop a better understanding of the policy issues in public health, and of the strategies required to address them. Step 2: Participants will be better prepared to engage in policy strategy discussions and activities to direct public health toward the social determinants of health. Step 3: Learning objectives--participants will be able to: o recognize the different policy strategies required to support different approaches to population health improvement; o articulate strategies specifically targeted toward support of work with communities and other partners to address the social determinants of health; and, o develop policy advocacy strategies tailored to their own state and local environments.

Keywords: Public Health Policy, Advocacy

Related Web page: www.partnershipPH.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.