Public Health’s Falling Share of US Health Spending

We examined trends in US public health expenditures by analyzing historical and projected National Health Expenditure Accounts data. Per-capita public health spending (inflation-adjusted) rose from $39 in 1960 to $281 in 2008, and has fallen by 9.3% since then. Public health’s share of total health expenditures rose from 1.36% in 1960 to 3.18% in 2002, then fell to 2.65% in 2014; it is projected to fall to 2.40% in 2023. Public health spending has declined, potentially undermining prevention and weakening responses to health inequalities and new health threats.Despite widespread rhetorical endorsement of prevention, public health programs have received less attention and far less funding than personal medical services.1 The 2010 Affordable Care Act (Pub L No. 111–148) mandated insurance coverage of clinical preventive services such as colon cancer screening and contraception. In addition, it earmarked funding for a new Prevention and Public Health Fund, buoying hopes for an expansion of public health spending.In this brief report, we analyze trends in public health spending over the past 53 years, as well as projected trends in the coming decade.     

Healthcare Providers’ Satisfaction with a State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)

Purpose This study’s purpose was to understand how experiences with and perceptions of the health care plan characteristics influence provider satisfaction with a State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Methods Physicians and other health care providers participating in one program (ALL Kids) were mailed a survey (n = 500). Pediatricians were the most likely to return the survey. We used frequencies, chi-square and logistic regression analysis to explore relationships. Results The odds of being less satisfied with the program among providers who perceived that reimbursement in the ALL Kids program was less compared to private insurance were almost 7 times (OR = 6.81; 95% CI = (1.88–24.73)) greater than for those who perceived that reimbursement was more or the same in ALL Kids. Likewise, respondents who perceived that All Kids families were less likely than families with private insurance to return for follow-up visits were less satisfied with ALL Kids (OR = 17.42; 95% CI = (1.85–164.70)). Conclusions The stigma of SCHIP may be less than that often associated with Medicaid; however, this investigation should be considered with others that have identified barriers for provider’s participation. This study indicates that provider satisfaction is related to their perceptions of SCHIP policies and families, though it does not tell us what factors might contribute to this perception, such as, previous experience with public insurance (Medicaid) and publicly insured patients. Increasing reimbursement rates may not address perceptions that affect provider views of publicly-supported health plans and the participating families.     

The Northwest Public Health Information Exchange’s Accomplishments in Connecting a Health Information Exchange with Public Health

In 2007 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Request for Proposal for the “Situational Awareness through Health Information Exchange” project. The Situational Awareness project’s goals are to connect public health with health information exchanges (HIEs) to improve public health’s real-time understanding of communities’ population health and healthcare facility status. During this same time period the Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology released several reports identifying the growing number of communities involved in health information exchange and outlining the requirements for a Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). CDC saw the possibilities of using HIEs and the NHIN to accelerate the real-time sharing of clinical and facility-based resource utilization information to enhance local, state, regional, and federal public health in responding to and managing potentially catastrophic infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies. HIEs would provide a unified view of a patient across health care providers and would serve as data collection points for clinical and resource utilization data while NHIN services and standards would be used to capture HIE data of importance and send those data to public health. This article discusses how automated syndromic surveillance data feeds have proven more stable and representative than existing surveillance data feeds and summarizes other accomplishments of the Northwest Public Health Information Exchange in its contribution to the advancement of the National agenda for sharing interoperable health information with public health.     

What’s Past is Prologue: A Scoping Review of Recent Public Health and Global Health Informatics Literature

Objective: To categorize and describe the public health informatics (PHI) and global health informatics (GHI) literature between 2012 and 2014.Methods: We conducted a semi-systematic review of articles published between January 2012 and September 2014 where information and communications technologies (ICT) was a primary subject of the study or a main component of the study methodology. Additional inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to filter PHI and GHI articles from the larger biomedical informatics domain. Articles were identified using MEDLINE as well as personal bibliographies from members of the American Medical Informatics Association PHI and GHI working groups.Results: A total of 85 PHI articles and 282 GHI articles were identified. While systems in PHI continue to support surveillance activities, we identified a shift towards support for prevention, environmental health, and public health care services. Furthermore, articles from the U.S. reveal a shift towards PHI applications at state and local levels. GHI articles focused on telemedicine, mHealth and eHealth applications. The development of adequate infrastructure to support ICT remains a challenge, although we identified a small but growing set of articles that measure the impact of ICT on clinical outcomes.Discussion: There is evidence of growth with respect to both implementation of information systems within the public health enterprise as well as a widening of scope within each informatics discipline. Yet the articles also illuminate the need for more primary research studies on what works and what does not as both searches yielded small numbers of primary, empirical articles.Conclusion: While the body of knowledge around PHI and GHI continues to mature, additional studies of higher quality are needed to generate the robust evidence base needed to support continued investment in ICT by governmental health agencies.     

Electronic Reproductive Health Surveillance System (ERHSS)

Beginning in 1996, PUHSC began to design and develop the ERHSS based on the existing perinatal health care (PHC) surveillance, birth defects (BD) surveillance, and child health care surveillance systems. The ERHSS is a population-based, computerized monitoring and management information system, and represents the first time a population-based electronic surveillance system has been developed and used in China. And advanced database computing and network techniques were adopted in desig…     

Primary Care and Public Health Services Integration in Brazil’s Unified Health System

Objectives. We examined associations between transdisciplinary collaboration, evidence-based practice, and primary care and public health services integration in Brazil’s Family Health Strategy. We aimed to identify practices that facilitate service integration and evidence-based practice.Methods. We collected cross-sectional data from community health workers, nurses, and physicians (n = 262). We used structural equation modeling to assess providers’ service integration and evidence-based practice engagement operationalized as latent factors. Predictors included endorsement of team meetings, access to and consultations with colleagues, familiarity with community, and previous research experience.Results. Providers’ familiarity with community and team meetings positively influenced evidence-based practice engagement and service integration. More experienced providers reported more integration and engagement. Physicians reported less integration than did community health workers. Black providers reported less evidence-based practice engagement than did Pardo (mixed races) providers. After accounting for all variables, evidence-based practice engagement and service integration were moderately correlated.Conclusions. Age and race of providers, transdisciplinary collaboration, and familiarity with the community are significant variables that should inform design and implementation of provider training. Promising practices that facilitate service integration in Brazil may be used in other countries.The integration of primary care and public health is a key strategy, recommended nationally and internationally, for assisting underserved populations; it encourages community-focused initiatives and transdisciplinary approaches to practice. Integration allows health providers (e.g., physicians, nurses, health workers) to use individual- and community-level interventions to influence, respectively, individual behavior and community health.1–3 Brazil’s Sistema Único de Saúde (Unified Health System) was created as a result of Brazil’s 1988 federal constitution and the 1990 Lei Orgânica da Saúde (Organic Health Law). This law aimed to establish a large, decentralized health system offering free, universal care from medical consultations to organ transplants, health campaigns, and sanitation.4 This system struggles with access, quality, and service coordination (e.g., scheduling, monitoring) mainly because it is incorporated under a single legal structure that contradicts decentralization and affects the integration of services that different sectors of the Sistema Único de Saúde, such as hospitals, provide.5To integrate primary care and public health, the Sistema Único de Saúde employs the Estratégia Saúde da Família (ESF; Family Health Strategy), a transdisciplinary approach used by health providers. ESF reflects “the new public health” paradigm, positing that integration best addresses health and environmental issues affecting communities.6–8 The World Health Organization recommends that diverse providers pursue community-level outcomes and medical cost reductions through service integration.9 Established in 1994 as the Programa de Saúde da Família, today the ESF consolidates a model of assistance operationalized by professional teams, including nurses, physicians, and community health workers (CHWs), that serve about 4000 individuals per team.10,11In Brazil, service integration is accomplished by transdisciplinary collaboration—providers delivering primary care alongside public health interventions (e.g., disease prevention campaigns).11–14 Providers strive to engage in evidence-based practice (EBP), which is characterized by providers assessing the impact of environmental issues (e.g., water supply) on health and by incorporating patient input and research findings into diagnosis and treatment. EBP is encouraged by training local providers in integration methods.15,16 ESF has improved adult patients’ awareness of their diagnoses and prognoses and their adherence to children’s immunization schedules and has decreased infant mortality, hospitalizations, and medication costs.10,11,17–19     

A Health Department’s Collaborative Model for Disease Surveillance Capacity Building

Objective

Highlight one academic health department’s unique approach to optimizing collaborative opportunities for capacity development and document the implications for chronic disease surveillance and population health.

Introduction

Public Health departments are increasingly called upon to be innovative in quality service delivery under a dwindling resource climate as highlighted in several publications of the Institute of Medicine. Collaboration with other entities in the delivery of core public health services has emerged as a recurring theme. One model of this collaboration is an academic health department: a formal affiliation between a health professions school and a local health department. Initially targeted at workforce development, this model of collaboration has since yielded dividends in other core public health service areas including community assessment, program evaluation, community-based participatory research and data analysis.The Duval County Health Department (DCHD), Florida, presents a unique community-centered model of the academic health department. Prominence in local informatics infrastructure capacity building and hosting a CDC-CSTE applied public health informatics fellowship (APHIF) in the Institute for Public Health Informatics and Research (IPHIR) in partnership with the Center for Health Equity Research, University of Florida & Shands medical center are direct dividends of this collaborative model.

Methods

We examined the collaborative efforts of the DCHD and present the unique advantages these have brought in the areas of entrenched data-driven public health service culture, community assessments, program evaluation, community-based participatory research and health informatics projects.

Results

Advantages of the model include a data-driven culture with the balanced scorecard model in leadership and sub-departmental emphases on quality assurance in public health services. Activities in IPHIR include data-driven approaches to program planning and grant developments, program evaluations, data analyses and impact assessments for the DCHD and other community health stakeholders.Reports developed by IPHIR have impacted policy formulation by highlighting the need for sub county level data differentiation to address health disparities. Unique community-based mapping of Duval County into health zones based on health risk factors correlating with health outcome measures have been published. Other reports highlight chronic disease surveillance data and health scorecards in special populations.Partnerships with regional higher institutions (University of Florida, University of North Florida and Florida A&M University) increased public health service delivery and yielded rich community-based participatory research opportunities.Cutting edge participation in health IT policy implementation led to the hosting of the fledgling community HIE, the Jacksonville Health Information Network, as well as leadership in shaping the landscape of the state HIE. This has immense implications for public health surveillance activities as chronic disease surveillance and public health service research take center stage under new healthcare payment models amidst increasing calls for quality assurance in public health services.DCHD is currently hosting a CDC-funded fellowship in applied public health informatics. Some of the projects materializing from the fellowship are the mapping of the current public health informatics profile of the DCHD, a community based diabetes disease registry to aid population-based management and surveillance of diabetes, development of a proposal for a combined primary care/general preventive medicine residency in UF-Shands Medical Center, Jacksonville and mobilization of DCHD healthcare providers for the roll-out of the state-built electronic medical records system (Florida HMS-EHR).

Conclusions

Academic health centers provide a model of collaboration that directly impacts on their success in delivering core public health services. Disease surveillance is positively affected by the diverse community affiliations of an academic health department. The academic health department, as epitomized by DCHD, is also better positioned to seize up-coming opportunities for local public health capacity building.     

Characteristics of Children Eligible for Public Health Insurance but Uninsured: Data from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health

To describe the state variation, demographic and family characteristics of children eligible for public health insurance but uninsured. Using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health we selected a subset of children living in households with incomes <200 % of the federal poverty level, who are generally eligible for Medicaid or CHIP. We used multiple logistic regression to examine associations between insurance status among this group of eligible children and certain demographic factors, family characteristics, and state of residence. In adjusted models children aged 6–11 and 12–17 years were more likely to be eligible but uninsured compared to those aged 0–5 years (AOR 1.57; 95 % CI 1.15–2.16 and AOR 1.93; 95 % CI 1.41–2.64). Children who received school lunch (AOR 0.67; 95 % CI 0.52–0.86) and SNAP (AOR 0.33; 95 % CI 0.24–0.46) were less likely to be eligible but uninsured compared to those children not receiving those needs based services; however, a majority (58.7 %) of eligible uninsured children were enrolled in the school lunch program. Five states (Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, New York) accounted for 46 % of the eligible uninsured children. Vermont had the lowest adjusted estimate of eligible uninsured children (3.6 %) and Nevada had the highest adjusted estimate (35.5 %). Using nationally representative data we have identified specific state differences, demographic and household characteristics that could help guide federal and local initiatives to improve public health insurance enrollment for children who are eligible but uninsured.     

Impact of a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Health Literacy Program on Immigrant Women’s Health Literacy,Health Empowerment,Navigation Efficacy,and Health Care Utilization

We evaluated the effectiveness of a problem-based learning (PBL) health literacy program aimed to improve health literacy, health empowerment, navigation efficacy, and health care utilization among immigrant women in Taiwan.

We employed a quasi-experimental design that included surveys at the baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 6 months after the intervention. The intervention group participated in a 10-session PBL health literacy program and the comparison group did not.

Results showed that 6 months after the intervention, the intervention group had significantly fewer ER visits and hospitalizations than the comparison group. The intervention group reported a greater decrease in delaying/avoiding health care due to communication barriers. Although the intervention group showed improvement in health literacy, health empowerment and navigation self-efficacy, the differences were not statistically significant.

The PBL health literacy program resulted in fewer ER visits and hospitalizations, and better health care access among immigrant women. Cognitive and psychological outcomes examined in the study appeared more difficult to change.

The PBL health literacy program effectively improved health care utilization and reduced barriers to health care access among immigrant women in Taiwan. It would be useful to examine the effectiveness of the program in other populations.