Integrated behavioral health, which incorporates behavioral health services into general medical settings, is an effective approach to improving access to mental health care. The psychiatric collaborative care model (CoCM), a team-based approach involving a primary care provider, behavioral health care manager, and consulting psychiatrist, has strong evidence supporting its effectiveness for treating conditions such as…
In rural areas, providers and Medicaid enrollees may face additional barriers in providing or accessing telehealth, even within states that have adopted supportive telehealth policies. This is particularly the case during a public health emergency such as COVID-19. This article offers one of the earliest estimates of telehealth provision to pregnant Medicaid enrollees during COVID-19,…
Recruitment and retention have remained ongoing challenges for the public health workforce for decades. Health departments struggle to attract and retain workers due to a wide range of long-standing barriers, including insufficient funding, unclear public health position advertisements, and protracted hiring processes with complex administrative requirements. Such challenges not only limit the ability to fill…
The United States is facing a growing youth mental health crisis, with increasing rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality among children and adolescents. At the same time, shortages of behavioral health providers and other barriers to care limit access to needed services. School-based behavioral health (SBBH) programs have emerged as a promising strategy to improve…
Geographic disparities in healthcare access remain a persistent challenge in Medicaid, prompting growing interest in area-level measures that can help identify communities with the greatest unmet needs. Multidimensional socioeconomic indexes, such as the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), may provide a more comprehensive way to target healthcare resources than traditional income-based measures alone. Understanding how these…
In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists suggested approaches, including upskilling and recruitment/hiring, to strengthen workforce capacity in public health data science. This article estimates the number of recently graduated data scientists who might be eligible for and potentially hirable into government public health jobs…
Governmental public health has been saddled with underinvestment and stagnant wages, making recruitment into the sector challenging. Although governmental public health pays reasonably well overall, it is also generally viewed as uncompetitive with the healthcare and tech sectors, which often capture recent graduates and recent hires. The growing concern of student loan debt, coupled with…
Workplace violence (WPV) against healthcare workers is a longstanding challenge that impacts the well-being of workers and patients. State legislative efforts to address WPV against healthcare workers have accelerated in recent years, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. This article provides a comprehensive review of WPV-related enacted legislation in healthcare settings across all 50 states over…
Disease intervention specialists (DISs) play a crucial role in the public health workforce by conducting essential tasks such as contact tracing, contact interviews, and providing referrals for services to control disease spread. Despite the importance of DISs, research is lacking on the job tasks that they perform and the role that they serve in public…
Public health nurses (PHNs) are one of the largest public health occupation groups, bringing important expertise to the activities of public health; however, their roles and distribution differ across the country. The local-level need for and role of PHNs differ across the United States based on factors such as community characteristics, health needs, and public…
