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The Public Health Foundation (PHF) strives to help health agencies, community organizations, and public health systems strengthen their infrastructure and achieve results. PHF has been a leader in creating innovative systems that increase accountability, support improvement, and make information accessible and useful for the field. (Learn about our learning management system, community health status indicators, and expenditures efforts.) Working in partnership with our clients, we have created numerous tools, reports, and other resources—available on this website as a public service.

Learn what PHF has to offer:

	Tools and Technical Assistance
	Training and Workforce Development
	Research
	Leading and Facilitating Initiatives

If your organization would like to work with PHF to develop solutions tailored to your needs, please contact us.

This website features many tools and resources to help public health systems strengthen their infrastructure, with a particular focus on performance improvement and workforce development. In addition to developing new tools, PHF has much experience in compiling existing tools drawing from public health and other fields and making them more accessible to those working to protect the public's health. PHF can also offer specially tailored consultation and technical assistance to help strengthen your public health system.

Performance Improvement
In a drive to help public health systems save lives, cut costs, and get better results by managing performance, PHF has launched a major initiative called the Alliance for Achieving Results and Outcomes, or AARO^TM (pronounced "arrow"). PHF offers customized performance improvement training, team coaching, consultation, and assistance on a fee-for-service basis.
Learn more
Contact Jacalyn Carden if you are interested in purchasing technical assistance services

In addition, PHF has developed a number of resources available to all professionals who protect the public's health. PHF serves as a partner in the National Public Health Performance Standards Program (NPHPSP), which offers state, local, and governance performance standards and measurement tools related to the 10 Essential Public Health Services. To assist NPHPSP users, PHF offers:

• An online resource center to help public health systems and governing bodies improve performance in each of the Essential Public Health Services or NPHPSP Model Standards
• A database of performance improvement plans and other tools

PHF also collaborated with the Turning Point Performance Management National Excellence Collaborative to study how organizations manage performance and to develop a series of publications to help public health organizations better understand and apply these techniques.
Learn more
Contact Jacalyn Carden

Public Health Infrastructure Resource Center
This website serves as a gateway to information and resources to build the capacity and improve performance of public health systems. PHF has created descriptions of and links to hundreds of resources to help states and communities assess, build, and improve their infrastructure. Users can search the database or browse online resources organized by three core areas of public health infrastructure: Information & Communications Systems, Workforce Capacity, and Organizational & Systems Capacity. The site also includes information on preparedness infrastructure, as well as a Performance Management section, which provides tools, resources, and information on improving your public health system.
Visit the Resource Center site
Contact Jacalyn Carden

 
Training and Workforce Development
 
PHF connects professionals who protect and promote the public's health to training opportunities nationwide. We also help course providers and the developers of training products reach their target audiences, and assist employers in managing their employees' learning.

In addition, PHF provides training seminars in the area of performance improvement. By serving as staff of the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice, PHF has also been a leader in efforts to promote the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals, to facilitate partnerships between academia and practice, and to improve worker recruitment and retention.
Learn more
Contact Ron Bialek

Search for Courses on TRAIN
TRAIN, the TrainingFinder Real-time Affiliate Integrated Network, provides a robust clearinghouse of on-site training and distance learning opportunities available in local, state, and national jurisdictions. Individuals can find information on over 7,900 public health courses offered by more than 2,200 providers. Learners can also create personal learning records of competency-based training; register online for courses; maintain an online learner transcript; and sign up to receive emails about new classes of interest.
Visit TRAIN
Contact Lois Banks

Shop the PHF Bookstore—Learning Resource Center
LRC - PHF's online bookstore, the Learning Resource Center (LRC), offers over 300 publications, videotapes, CD-ROMs, resource manuals, physician guides, posters, and patient brochures to help organizations protect and improve health. LRC offers materials from leading health authorities focused on such topics as preparedness and emergency risk communication, epidemiology, minority health, immunizations, diabetes and obesity, program evaluation, violence and injury prevention, and performance management.
Shop LRC
Contact Antoinette Williams

Post Your Courses on TRAIN
TRAIN is the nation's premier learning resource for professionals who protect the public’s health. This free resource allows course providers to efficiently publicize their courses to almost 208,000 learners, as well as to manage online registration and student rosters, post course materials and discussion topics, and create online assessments and evaluations.
Visit TRAIN
Contact Lois Banks

Offer Your Training Products Through LRC
The Learning Resource Center (LRC) distributes and markets high-quality, low-cost training and resource materials to more than 100,000 public health and healthcare professionals annually. LRC is a self-supporting private-public partnership that operates at no cost to the partner agency, organization, or individual. It operates on a cost-recovery basis, keeping prices to a minimum. LRC assists its partners by reducing printing costs; increasing distribution through marketing; and eliminating dissemination headaches.
Learn more
Contact Antoinette Williams if you are interested in distributing your training materials through LRC

Use the TRAIN Learning Management System
TRAIN also offers a powerful learning management system that greatly benefits Affiliates—states and other organizations responsible for managing, providing, and assessing workforce training information. (See who’s on board the TRAIN.) TRAIN Affiliates can track the continuing education activities of their workforce and generate reports to manage employee progress. Also, because they are part of a conglomeration of public health organizations, Affiliates can actively share learning information and training programs through a uniform system and take advantage of cost sharing for the development of new enhancements.
Learn more
Contact Lois Banks if you are interested in becoming a TRAIN Affiliate

In order to assure that public health systems have the information they need to implement evidence-based strategies, make policy decisions, strengthen their infrastructure, and improve their performance, PHF is committed to advancing public health systems research (PHSR). PHSR has been defined by the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice as “a field of inquiry using quantitative and qualitative methodology to examine the impact of the organization, staffing, financing, and management of public health systems on the access to, delivery, cost, quality, and outcomes of population-based services and interventions.”
Learn more
Contact Jennifer Stanley

PHF's efforts in this area are focused around the following areas:

Conducting PHSR from Conception and Design to Completion
PHF has authored numerous reports, articles, and studies on public health systems questions. (See list on left for some examples.) In addition to analyzing data, PHF has helped design, administer, and collect data for surveys—for example, the 2005 National Profile of Local Public Health Agencies—and conducted focus groups and evaluations—such as the Healthy People 2010 website evaluation.
Learn more
Contact Jennifer Stanley if you are interested in PHF assisting you with your research, survey, or focus group needs

Creating, Maintaining, and Making Available Databases
Researchers and decision makers need to have access to data sets related to public health infrastructure and outcomes. PHF is charged with administering and maintaining the reporting system for the National Public Health Performance Standards Program, which collects information on how well state and local public health systems and governing bodies meet standards related to the Essential Public Health Services. PHF also believes that databases need to contain information that is presented in a way that is useful to communities. To that end, PHF was part of a collaborative effort—the Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) project—that produced county-specific reports on community health status for local jurisdictions across the United States. Through a new partnership, involving several federal government agencies and partner organizations, we anticipate release of updated CHSI profiles and availability of a downloadable database by September 2007.

Disseminating and Translating PHSR Findings and Data
PHF seeks to help transform research finding into tools that agencies and organizations can use. For example, PHF created The Key Ingredient of the National Prevention Agenda: Workforce Development—Healthy People 2010 Workforce Companion Document to help the public health community easily access relevant resources.

Promoting the Understanding of PHSR
PHSR is an emerging field. PHF, through its work with the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice (Council), has brought together individuals and organizations who conduct, finance, and use research and in order to focus their attention on assuring that vital infrastructure questions are answered. The Council has convened a closed-door meeting of funders, as well as annual forums to advance PHSR, and has helped researchers make the pitch for support for PHSR projects. In addition, the Council has compiled and is disseminating a list of research needs, in an effort to attract greater attention to the questions that will be useful to public health agencies, organizations, and policy makers. PHF is committed to continuing its leadership and advocacy in PHSR.
Learn more
Contact Ron Bialek

To advance improved performance and stronger infrastructure in public health, PHF has led several innovative efforts to pool the resources and insights of many agencies and organizations in activities that serve the entire public health community.

As examples...

	In developing the learning management system TRAIN, PHF brought together representatives from more than 40 states to discuss their needs for an online system to track employees' training. PHF continues to convene its affiliates on a regular basis to develop enhancements for the system.
	As staff to the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice (Council), PHF has convened this coalition of 17 national organizations. For 15 years, the Council provided an opportunity for leaders from academic institutions and practice agencies and organizations to discuss critical issues. Over the years, the Council has helped advance the field by: developing the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals; promoting public health systems research; fostering academic/practice linkages; and identifying and disseminating evidence-based strategies to alleviate worker shortages.
	Through AAROTM—the Alliance for Achieving Results and Outcomes—PHF is seeking to draw from experts in quality improvement and performance management from a wide spectrum of public health, healthcare, government, and business organizations.

Contact Ron Bialek if you are interested in PHF assisting you in developing, facilitating, or leading innovative public health initiatives

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This page updated 1-31-08