New bipartisan legislation has been introduced to reinforce and expand our public health workforce amidst significant shortages. The Strengthening the Public Health Workforce Act would help restore the public health workforce at the state, local, and tribal levels to support the COVID-19 response effort. These measures are particularly urgent given the current state of our public health sector: according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is a nationwide shortage of 80,000 public health professionals.
Since 2008, state and local health departments have lost nearly a quarter of their workforce, representing over 50,000 jobs across the country. Public health departments also face a looming retirement crisis, with almost a quarter of health department staff currently eligible for retirement and 55 percent of local public health professionals already over age 45. It is projected that nearly half of the public health workforce is considering leaving their organization in the next five years. Furthermore, COVID-19 may exacerbate workforce shortages, as over half of public health workers surveyed reported experiencing poor mental health due to the demands of responding to the pandemic.
The Strengthening the Public Health Workforce Act would reauthorize and improve the Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program to help expand the public health workforce at the state, local, and tribal levels and support the COVID-19 response effort.
Specifically, the Strengthening the Public Health Workforce Act:
- Reauthorizes the Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program to provide education loan repayment assistance to eligible individuals who work in a state, local, or tribal public health department. Under the program, an individual could receive up to $35,000 in repayment assistance for each year of service;
- Authorizes the program for the next three fiscal years;
- Shortens the obligated service time period from three years to two years;
- Expands eligibility requirements to include individuals with degrees in public health, epidemiology, data systems, data science, data analytics, informatics, or statistics;
- Ensures that program contracts are equitably distributed between geographic areas, local, state and tribal health departments, and rural and urban health departments; and
- Directs the Comptroller General to conduct an evaluation of the public health workforce in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.