How funding impacts public health departments' emergency preparedness

The United States public health departments at federal, state, and local level are responsible for protecting Americans through a number of critical health services and preparedness capabilities. Such services include infectious disease surveillance, inspections of food and drug manufacturers, monitoring of imported foods and drugs, in-depth disease outbreak investigations, and disaster preparedness and response. The problem this study addressed was while disease and emergencies are increasing, a lack of funding impacts local public health departments' preparedness and response capabilities to emergencies and/or disasters. This quantitative correlational study investigated whether funding from Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI) and Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Cooperative Agreement impact local public health departments' public health emergency preparedness performance measures and Local Technical Assistant Review (LTAR) scores. In order to answer the research questions, local public health departments in one state provided the data. The study's findings suggested CRI funding and PHEP Cooperative Agreement funding have a positive impact on local public health departments' emergency preparedness performance measures. In addition, Local Technical Assistant Review (LTAR) scores and Annual FY 2012 and FY 2013 budgets had a negative relationship on local public health departments' emergency preparedness staffing capabilities. The findings provided valuable information to public health and disaster response officials to identify the impacts of funding on preparedness and response to emergencies and disasters.