A picture of the US public health system's funding capacity to respond to COVID-19

What is it about?

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic placed an unprecedented burden on the U.S. governmental public health system. In the year immediately before the pandemic's onset, 39% of local health departments within this system were experiencing increasing or stagnant agency budgets while their relative budgets dedicated to addressing public health emergencies shrunk.

Featured Image

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This article paints a picture of the local public health system's dedicated capacity to respond to public health threats. The presence of increasing agency budgets alongside decreasing program-specific budgets is alarming. This contradicts the growing need for local capacity to respond to public health emergencies in the face of climate change and emerging infectious diseases like Monkeypox.