Assessing the State of Public Health

The American Rescue Plan included $7.7 billion for 100,000 new public health jobs, and much of the money went to individual states. To learn how the funds were being used and what progress was made, Michael S. Sparer, JD, PhD, professor and chair of Health Policy and Management, and Lawrence D. Brown, PhD, professor of Health Policy and Management, spoke with leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and traveled to Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi, New York, and Washington. They published their findings in The Milbank Quarterly: States were not spending the money expeditiously. There are limits to what funding can do without cooperation from local governments. (Kentucky was the only state where there was a “truly collaborative process” between local and state officials.) Public health needs support from mayors, and local commissioners, and these leaders need to be persuaded that improving the public health system will benefit citizens.

A Major Grant for a Significant Problem

Daniel Giovenco, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of Sociomedical Sciences, was awarded a five-year, $2.9 million National Institutes of Health Research Project Grant (R01). His research will explore the impact of local interventions to establish caps on the number of tobacco retail licenses permitted in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York City. Tobacco retailer density is disproportionately high in lowincome communities and certain racial and ethnic enclaves, contributing to severe socioeconomic and social disparities in smoking and its resultant health harms. His results will inform equitable policy formation and help to reduce persistent health disparities.