PUBLIC HEALTH CORE FUNCTIONS

Health Departments Implementation of Public Health's Core Functions: An Assessment of Health impacts

Sylvanus Ofoma

Proposal- Culminating Experience in MPH

Elizabeth James,PhD

February 28, 2011

Tulane University

School Of Public Health and Tropical Medicine



Public Health's Core Functions 2

Introduction

To study the relationship between state health agencies adherence to the recommendations of the United State's Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report, 'The Future of Public Health and changes in their population's health.

The 1988 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, 'The Future of Public Health', fundamentally altered the way public health was organized in the USA. In that report, the committee recommended that state-level health agencies should increase their administrative capabilities in three core functional areas— assessment, assurance and policy development (Zajac, Shortell, 1998).

Background & Significance of IOM

IOM has been working since a long time and it has become very essential in the health sector. The increased attention to administrative capabilities has been accompanied by an increased interest in quantifying, tracking and improving the health impact assessment of government agencies in the USA, in other developed countries and throughout the world.

Purpose of the review

The main purpose of the study is to understand the role of IOM in the public health care. In the USA, the effort came to critical mass with the publication of 'Healthy People 2000' and continues to grow (Wang, 2002).

Following research question will be included in this study:

RQ1: Does having well-developed assessment, assurance and policy development functions correlate positively with above-average improvements in population health status?

This particular research on the topic of “Health Departments Implementation of Public Health's Core Functions: An Assessment of Health impacts” advances the study of public health in three distinct ways. First, linking population health impact assessments to the agencies charged with improving them is an significant endeavor. In particular, assessing agencies core management capabilities and relating them to improvements in population health status over time provides significant information to policy makers on the way that departments should strive to function (Coyne, 2002). Second, using content analysis to study organizational documents other than surveys to assess the degree of compliance with IOM recommendations potentially increases the objectivity and reliability of the findings. Last, the study assesses the core functions model promulgated by the IOM and its utility in improving population's overall health status in the USA (Coyne, 2002).

Methodology

In this paper both the qualitative and quantitative study methods will be observed. For the purpose of qualitative study different magazines, periodicals, and books will be reviewed. Also, help will be taken from the internet sources. For the purpose of quantitative research, different interviews and surveys will be conducted. And based on the result from such interviews and questionnaires, result will be extraxted.

Review of Literature

Public health activities have significantly improved the length and quality of life throughout the world (US Department of and Human Services, 2010). In particular, the reduced incidence and prevalence of infectious diseases has been a foremost public health achievement (US Department of and Human Services, 2010). However, future progress will be more tough to achieve and ...