Maylahn, Christopher M

English

University of Kentucky

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research Volume 1 Number 2 Article 3 July 2012 Editorial Comment: The Makings of an Evidence-Based Local Health Department: Identifying Administrative and Management Practices Christopher M. Maylahn New York State Department of Health, cmm05@health.state.ny.us Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/frontiersinphssr  Part of the Public Health Commons Recommended Citation Maylahn CM. Editorial Comment: The Makings of an Evidence-Based Local Health Department: Identifying Administrative and Management Practices. Front Public Health Serv Syst Res 2012; 1(2). DOI: 10.13023/FPHSSR.0102.03 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for Public Health Systems and Services Research at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact UKnowledge@lsv.uky.edu. Editorial Comment: The Makings of an Evidence-Based Local Health Department: Identifying Administrative and Management Practices Keywords public health services and systems research, phssr This Article is available in Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/frontiersinphssr/vol1/iss2/3 Local health departments occupy a critical role in promoting and protecting the health of people living in communities throughout the United States. In 2010, there were almost 2,800 local health departments nationwide.1 These departments are often the sole providers of public health services and shoulder a major responsibility for health promotion, disease prevention and disease control in their jurisdiction. The recent economic downturn has adversely affected local health departments nationwide, resulting in budget cuts, job losses and elimination or consolidation of programs.2 Under these circumstances, local health departments must carefully weigh the options for how they address community health needs.  Using the best available evidence to make decisions about public health practice increases the likelihood of successful programs and policies being implemented, greater workforce productivity and more efficient use of public and private resources.3 However, leadership and management styles, organizational structure, and workforce in local health departments can influence how decisions are made, what gets implemented and whether health indicators improve. For example, Scutchfield and colleagues4 demonstrated that one of the main predictors of strong public health performance was leaders’ attention to the science base, quality, and performance outcomes. While the growing number of proven public health interventions has positioned local health departments to be successful in achieving their health objectives, the “how” of putting these strategies in place has received less emphasis in scientific journals. The current issue of Frontiers seeks to correct that imbalance by drawing attention to organizational and management strategies that support implementation of evidence-based interventions by local health departments.  The article by Allen and colleagues in this issue focuses on a practical set of administrative tactics that have been described in the organizational and management literature since 2000. Local health departments can employ them, often at low cost, in such domains as workforce, leadership, organizational climate and culture, partnerships and financial processes. Gains in these areas can lead to improvements in service quality, performance and overall health. The authors make the claim that greater use of administrative and management evidence-based practices will benefit policy-makers, practitioners and researchers – the target audiences of Frontiers. By releasing a summary of findings from this review in a shortened format, the editors hope that readers will benefit from the insights described here while awaiting the publication of the full study. Implicit in the brief summary is the value of academicians working collaboratively with public health practitioners on practice-based research. For academicians, ‘implementation’ and ‘sustainability’ may not be the most important priorities for their research, yet these topics are often paramount concerns of public health practitioners. Conversely, the methodologic skills and scientific rigor that are contributed by people trained in research can help answer questions on the minds of practitioners that may otherwise go unanswered. This Frontiers summary may whet the appetites of both groups interested in what drives improvement in public health interventions 3Maylahn: Editorial Comment: Identifying Administrative and Management PracticesPublished by UKnowledge, 2012at a reasonable cost, while suggesting avenues of future inquiry for advancing public health systems and services research.  Department Job Losses and Program 1. National Association of County and City Health Officials [Internet] 2012. [Cited 2012, July 3]; available at:  http://www.naccho.org  2. National Association of County and City Health Officials. Local Health Department Job Losses and Program Cuts: Findings from January 2012 Survey [Internet] 2012. [Cited 2012, July 3]; available at:  http://www.naccho.org/topics/infrastructure/lhdbudget/upload/Overview-Report-Final Revised.pdf 3. Brownson RC, Fielding JE, Maylahn CM. Evidence-based public health: a fundamental concept for public health practice. Annual Review of Public Health 2009. 30:175–201. First published online as a Review in Advance on January 14, 2009.  4. Scutchfield FD, Knight EA, Kelly AV, Bhandari MW, Vasilescu IP. Local public health agency capacity and its relationship to public health system performance. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice 2004;10(3):2004-15.  4Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research, Vol. 1, No. 2 [2012], Art. 3https://uknowledge.uky.edu/frontiersinphssr/vol1/iss2/3DOI: 10.13023/FPHSSR.0102.03

Editorial Comment: The Makings of an Evidence-Based Local Health Department: Identifying Administrative and Management Practices

https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&amp;context=frontiersinphssr

Editorial Comment: The Makings of an Evidence-Based Local Health Department: Identifying Administrative and Management Practices

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