Across the United States, Americans are working on improving their health and the health of their families. People are curbing tobacco use, eating better, and moving their bodies more.
These changes have come about in no small part due to the tremendous impact that public health programs have had on our lives over the past decade. Our public health system is vital to our everyday lives, ensuring that the water we drink, food we eat and air we breathe are safe.
Now, significant public health victories may be threatened by inadequate federal funding for proven community-based health programs across the nation.
In Arkansas, annual federal public health funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration amounts to $46.70 per person, nearly a dollar-for-dollar match to our state's public health spending.
The Prevention and Public Health Fund, created by the Affordable Care Act, has awarded $9.13 million in grants to Arkansas since 2010 for community and clinical prevention efforts and improvements to public health infrastructure. Collectively, these funds are used for a wide variety of public health services and programs, including tobacco use prevention; measures to address obesity, diabetes and physical inactivity; infant and childhood immunizations; stopping diseases like salmonella, Chlamydia, pertussis and others; combating poor mental and physical health; emergency preparedness and much more.
Though Arkansas ranks 13th nationwide in public health expenditures, current funding remains inadequate to serve the health needs of Arkansans.
Funding for the public health system is critical to Americans' health and results in millions of saved lives. The future of our nation's health depends on a strong and properly equipped public health infrastructure at the community level--in Arkansas cities and towns, and across the country.
The nation's public health system should be efficiently designed and sustainably funded to prevent disease and keep the most people healthy. It is vital to everyone's health and well-being that funding levels support public health professionals to prevent and respond to health emergencies as well as provide basic public health and preventive services.
Currently, public health programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health Resources and Services Administration and other public health agencies are being severely affected by spending caps that will be further reduced by additional spending cuts, known as sequestration.
The public health community strongly urges renewed and desperately needed public health funding. We encourage Congress to develop a bipartisan and balanced deficit-reduction proposal that prioritizes public health.
It will be a deciding factor in the future of our state and nation's health.
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Loy Bailey is president of the Arkansas Public Health Association (ar_apha@yahoo.com).
Editorial on 09/22/2014