Updating US Public Health For Healthier Communities

Abstract

The United States faces urgent public health challenges, including high preventable death rates, pervasive health disparities, and emerging health risks, despite unprecedented medical progress. This article, part of the National Academy of Medicine's Vital Directions for Health and Health Care: Priorities for 2025 initiative, presents a vision for modernizing the US public health system to address these twenty-first-century challenges through federally supported partnerships with health care, social services, and community organizations. We identify actions to address persistent public health challenges that stem from insufficient and fragmented funding models, inadequate data infrastructure, workforce vulnerabilities, and limited public trust. Our proposals focus on four areas: enabling cross-sector collaboration, aligning financing mechanisms with accountability for population health outcomes, improving data systems, and building a ready workforce. These changes would enable significant improvements in population health outcomes and reductions in health disparities and provide a stronger foundation for a "team-based" future public health enterprise.