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Nov 4, 2021 · As of Dec. 8, 2021, 97.1% of employees in the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. See the sources for this...
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Table 1
The findings from the 2021 PH WINS survey show that the public health workforce is not as racially and ethnically diverse as the constituents its services target, the workforce perceived more staff members with public health experience were needed to effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and many public health workers reported an intention to leave their organization in the near future. This finding is concerning, given a recent report that found approximately 80,000 additional full-time staff members are needed throughout the nation’s public health agencies to provide foundational public health services (4). The public sector faces similar challenges to the public health workforce, with reported increases in voluntary turnover, the need for more staff members to reduce workloads, and increased workplace stress (5). With the public health system facing immense pressure because of the prolonged COVID-19 response, worsening national health, increased stress, and burnout (6), potential significant staff losses would further strain an overtasked workforce.
The governmental public health workforce is more racially and ethnically diverse than is the overall U.S. workforce (i.e., 77% White)†††; however, White employees are still the majority in all state and local health departments (54%). Further, this group remains overrepresented among public health executives, except for large LHDs, which have the most diversity in executive leadership (55% White executives). Diversity at all supervisory levels can facilitate a fuller understanding of the needs of culturally diverse communities (7). The disproportionate impact that COVID-19 has had on racial and ethnic minority communities (8) underscores the importance of a highly diverse workforce that can better fulfill the essential and emergent needs of all communities (9).
Nearly three quarters of respondents reported being deployed for the COVID-19 response. It is unclear what impact the necessary diversion of these resources had on other public health focus areas, many of which, including smoking, alcohol use, and violence, were likely exacerbated during the pandemic (8).
With nearly one half of the survey respondents having worked for ≤5 years at their current agency, and approximately one third having been in practice for ≤5 years, findings indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic might have been many employees’ first experience with a public health emergency. This finding coupled with the high percentage of the workforce reporting an intention to leave their organization might result in agencies with limited institutional knowledge from the COVID-19 pandemic response for future emergencies.
To grow and diversify the workforce in the face of potentially substantial turnover, agencies should consider redoubling efforts to increase and formalize recruitment pathways between academia and public health. Although hiring surges provide extra capacity, the workforce does not necessarily have the knowledge and expertise needed for an effective pandemic response. Recruitment and retention efforts should emphasize the need to retain knowledgeable and skilled employees with public health experience. Agencies might also want to address stress, burnout, and workplace environment factors§§§ (10).
The findings in this report are subject to at least four limitations. First, agency nonparticipation and individual nonresponse might pose limitations to generalizability; however, balanced repeated replication weights were applied to account for nonresponse and complex sampling. Second, the survey responses are largely self-reported, with inherent potential for biases, including social desirability bias. To mitigate potential bias, the study used previously used items where possible, and employed cognitive interviews and pretests for new items. Third, the study did not assess specific reasons for seeking leadership roles or retirement from the public health workforce by sociodemographic characteristics. Finally, the survey is of staff members who remained in the workplace, not those who had left. Although the prevalence of an intent to leave is comparable with that identified in previous administrations of PH WINS, actual turnover is plausibly much higher.
1.Leider JP, Pineau V, Bogaert K, Ma Q, Sellers K. The methods of PH WINS 2017: approaches to refreshing nationally representative state-level estimates and creating nationally representative local-level estimates of public health workforce interests and needs. J Public Health Manag Pract 2019;25(Suppl 2)S49–57. https://doi.org/10.1097/phh.0000000000000900 PMID:30720617
2.Wiesman J, Baker EL. Succession planning and management in public health practice. J Public Health Manag Pract 2013;19:100–1. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0b013e318272bb09 PMID:23169411
3.Hilliard TM, Boulton ML. Public health workforce research in review: a 25-year retrospective. Am J Prev Med 2012;42(Suppl 1):S17–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2012.01.031 PMID:22502923
4.de Beaumont Foundation. Staffing up: workforce levels needed to provide basic public health services for all Americans. Bethesda, MD: de Beaumont Foundation; 2021. https://debeaumont.org/news/2021/staffing-up-research-brief
5.MissionSquare Research Institute. Continued impact of COVID-19 on public sector employee job and financial outlook, satisfaction, and retention. Washington, DC: MissionSquare Research Institute; 2022: https://slge.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/public-workforce-and-covid-march2022.pdf
6.de Beaumont Foundation. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: rising stress and burnout in public health. Bethesda, MD: de Beaumont Foundation; 2022. https://debeaumont.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2022/03/Stress-and-Burnout-Brief_final.pdf
Apr 16, 2020 · Among 315,531 U.S. COVID-19 cases reported to CDC during February 12–April 9, data on HCP occupational status were available for 49,370 (16%), among whom 9,282 (19%) were identified as HCP ( Figure ).
CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.
Access Datasets on Data.CDC.gov. The provisional counts for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are based on a current flow of death data submitted to the National Vital Statistics System. National provisional counts include deaths occurring within the 50 states and the District of Columbia that have been received and coded as of the date specified.
We obtained data on laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, probable cases, and deaths across the United States from the Restricted Access Dataset operated by the CDC. In January 2020, COVID-19 data collection commenced, and COVID-19 was added to the nationally notifiable condition list; on April 5, 2020, COVID-19 was classified as immediately ...
Dec 24, 2021 · The agency’s new guidelines say health care workers with Covid-19 may return to work after seven days if they are asymptomatic and test negative, and that the “isolation time can be cut further...
