Public Health Planning and Technology for the Next Pandemic

In a recent column, I reflected on the urgent need for development of a set of new national strategic directions for public health. This urgency arises because of the crisis confronting the US public health system. The system lacks essential infrastructure, services, and leadership. Witness our recent experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic, disparities in illness, death, and vaccinations, and the persistent effects of pandemic mitigation efforts on families, employment, and mental health, among others. Now is the time to step up and plan for the future of public health in the 21st century.  

Once developed, these new strategic directions should be used to inform national advocacy activities. At the present time, Congress and the Biden-Harris administration are very attuned to COVID-19 and its effects. This creates a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move a concrete public health plan through the legislative process. This can eventuate in new financial appropriations and programs for public health.

One key strategic direction—public health technology—was elevated very recently.

On Sept. 22, the Boston Globe published an opinion piece by Susan Blumenthal and David Kong on “Reimagining public health infrastructure in the 21st century.” The premise is quite simple: Public health performed poorly during the COVID-19 pandemic because it employed practices, tools, and technology from the past.

Many examples of problems were cited by Blumenthal and Kong. These include deficiencies in early warning disease surveillance systems, major gaps in data such as lack of racial and ethnic information, gaps in testing, contact tracing, and vaccine availability, predigital contact tracing tools, major communication challenges and gaps, state websites that performed poorly, and lack of expertise in new digital technologies, among others. Clearly, steps are required now so that we can do much better in the next pandemic.

Blumenthal and Kong attribute these problems to a lack of national investment in integrated public health and technology solutions. Only 3-5% of our $3.5 trillion healthcare budget is spent on public health. They conclude by advocating for increases in our national investment and establishment of a new field of public health technology.

Kudos to Blumenthal and Kong.

I cite all of this to help establish the case that we do need bold, yet practical steps for public health in the future. The American Public Health Association has the intellectual capital, motivated members, and organizational know how to make this happen.

I challenge APHA to configure a national public health planning task force that will develop a small set of strategic directions that members can take to Congress and the Biden-Harris administration for action.  How we perform in the next pandemic will depend upon it.

Ron Manderscheid, PhD, is the former president and CEO of NACBHDD and NARMH, as well as an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the USC School of Social Work.