In this week's PLoS Medicine, Peter Bloland and colleagues from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lay out the agency's priorities for health systems strengthening efforts. To guide its support of public health in low- and middle-income countries around the world, the CDC proposes to focus its investments on strengthening six key public health functions that would contribute the most towards health systems strengthening efforts as a whole and have the greatest impact on improving the public's health. These include ensuring the availability of critical strategic epidemiologic information and strengthening key public health institutions and infrastructure.
The authors say: "We hope this paper will stimulate constructive discussion about public health's central role in strengthening health systems in low-resource settings as well as discussion around how to more deliberately engage public health institutions, domestically and abroad, in [health systems strengthening] efforts."
Funding: No specific funding was received for writing this article.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Citation: Bloland P, Simone P, Burkholder B, Slutsker L, De Cock KM (2012) The Role of Public Health Institutions in Global Health System Strengthening Efforts: The US CDC's Perspective. PLoS Med 9(4): e1001199. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001199
CONTACT:
Peter Bloland
Division of Public Health Systems and Workforce Development
Center for Global Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, Georgia
United States of America
pbb1@cdc.gov
Journal
PLoS Medicine