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."
Source: Public Library of Science