Dear John,

Join us Tuesday, June 18, from 3-4 p.m. ET for a Health Affairs Journal Club meeting with author Clara Long discussing a qualitative study from our June issue about how community groups can harness their power to address inequities in public health outcomes.

The COVID-19 pandemic led many to call for rebuilding the US public health system.

The June issue of Health Affairs takes the next step and asks: How might we reimagine what it takes to protect and promote the public’s health?

Jonathan Samet and Ross Brownson open the issue with an overview describing seven critical areas of focus to transform US public health: accountability, politicization and polarization, climate change, equity, data sciences, workforce, and communication.

Scope Of Public Health

Michelle Mello and coauthors assess how public health legal powers have become increasingly constrained.

Analyzing federal and state court decisions between March 2020 and March 2023, they find that “courts often disrupted long-held assumptions about the scope of public health powers.”

Monica Bharel and coauthors summarize the current use of artificial intelligence (AI) in public health and explore applications for generative AI models in public communication, organizational performance, and novel insights. They also discuss potential challenges related to these applications.

Jennifer Nuzzo and coauthors argue that a key weakness in US emergency preparedness is the lack of a comprehensive playbook for administering testing.

They developed such a playbook “to provide federal decision makers with a clear and evidence-based guide for making rapid and effective decisions about the development and scale-up of different types of testing in an infectious disease emergency.”

Katelyn Long and coauthors review recommendations emerging from a systematic review of evidence on spirituality and health and explore ways to incorporate spirituality as a social determinant of health within public health.

They conclude that spiritual literacy should be considered part of public health training and that coordination among public health, academic, and faith leaders should be strengthened.

Workforce

Chelsey Kirkland and coauthors examine findings from the first year of the Minnesota Public Health Corps, one of the largest Public Health AmeriCorps models, and conclude that it could be scaled up to address strains on the public health workforce and improve public health agencies’ capacity.

Emory University and the Georgia Department of Public Health established the Rollins Epidemiology Fellowship Program in 2020 to recruit master of public health–level epidemiologists for state and local public health positions in Georgia.

Allison Chamberlain and coauthors describe the fellowship’s success and discuss what contributed to it.

Valerie Yeager and Heather Krasna identify burnout and employee dissatisfaction, slow hiring processes, and lack of competitive salaries as barriers to recruitment in public health.

They provide recommendations to address these barriers, noting, “Making it easier for health departments to hire essential public health professionals may be one of the most effective ways to improve the health of the nation.”

Health Affairs Branded Post:

UnitedHealthcare and Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute propose standards to improve health care for people involved in the criminal justice system

Blair Harrison and Tyler Winkelman

Sponsored by UnitedHealthcare

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A Health Podyssey: Chelsey Kirkland on Building New Models for the Public Health Workforce

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Chelsey Kirkland of the University of Minnesota on her recent paper that explores the development of a new model for the governmental public health workforce in Minnesota.

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Join us Tuesday, June 18, from 3-4 p.m. ET for a Health Affairs Journal Club meeting with author Clara Long discussing a qualitative study from our June issue about how community groups can harness their power to address inequities in public health outcomes.