University Times

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $3.2 million to the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) to create the Pennsylvania Public Health Training Center (PAPHTC) to ensure public health professionals are well-trained to meet the nation’s health needs.

The five-year grant funds a partnership among GSPH, Pitt-Bradford and Drexel University School of Public Health that will provide training to help counteract the impact of a shrinking public health workforce, which is anticipated to reach crisis proportions in the coming years. In Pennsylvania, only six counties and four cities — representing less than half of the state’s population — have full-service public health departments.

“With diminishing resources, staff and state funding for public health, workers have been required to do much more with less,” said Maggie Potter, principal investigator of the grant and associate dean and director of the GSPH Center for Public Health Practice. “These increasing demands make training and support more important than ever by enabling public health workers to provide essential health services in the communities they serve,” she said.

PAPHTC is one of 27 accredited centers being funded over the next five years.

PAPHTC project director is Linda S. Duchak, associate director, GSPH Center for Public Health Practice.

Youmasu J. Siewe, PAPHTC project manager and director of the Center for Rural Health Practice at UPB, said, “At a time of ever-increasing health care cost, prevalence of chronic and lifestyle modifiable diseases, emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention through a trained public health workforce is a step in the right direction to improve health outcomes in our state and country.”

PAPHTC staff will develop partnerships with community-based organizations and health departments to provide training in management; health communications; program development and evaluation, and public health law and policy. PAPHTC also will provide organizational development services such as strategic planning and quality improvement.