Public health initiatives in the United States are under the federal public health agency operating under the Federal Department of Health and Human Services - FDH&HS. The agency is mandated to address broad health issues that affect the health and well being of the population. The purpose of the agency is to initiate, develop and implement disease awareness, prevention and cessation initiatives that promote health ( Baum, 2016). Due to its wide scope, it works in collaboration with the state's departments of health, healthcare organizations, community-based organizations, research institutions, and other government agencies to dispense its mandate. The federal government funds the agency operations through the FDH&HS.
The federal public health agency has been criticized for not making a significant difference in disease awareness, prevention, and cessation. Critics point out that the agency is not offering good value for the health care dollar. There is a high allocation of funds in the FDH&HS, but ultimate disease awareness, prevention, and cessation initiative are minimal ( Gostin and Wiley, 2016) . However, this is experienced because there is a general tendency over the decades to appropriate more funds into specialty and acute care than public health and prevention. The low fund allocation leads to less allocation to public health initiatives across all states.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The decentralization of the United States healthcare system provides to individual state departments of health to develop and implement individual public health initiatives. State-based departments of public health take responsibility for identifying and monitoring community health problems through investigation and diagnosis of existing health problems ( Baum, 2016) . The departments also educate, inform and empower communities on health issues to avoid health hazards in the community. At the state level, the departments mobilize various partners in identifying and solving existing health problems. To promote public health, the department enforces federal and state public health laws and regulations. Since most duties of the federal public health agency are duplicated at the state level, the federal agency role is not seen to make a difference in disease awareness, prevention, and cessation.
Reference
Baum, F. (2016). The new public health . Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 12-14.
Gostin, L. & Wiley, L. (2016). Public health law: power, duty, restraint . USA, CA: Univ of California Press, p. 22-25.
