The objective of the Public Health in Balance project, in partnership with the Iowa Public Health Association, is to gather stories in Iowa from the local public health workforce about the current state of public health in the United States right now. The survey will assist in strategic planning and action to support communities in managing public health challenges in the current context including around crises; and provide results on how to better support the public health workforce (areas of needed improvement). For the purposes of this study, we are defining the public health workforce as all those working in local, regional, state, and national health departments as well as those working in governmental and non-governmental public health agencies or community-based organizations with a public health focus. We used an innovative mixed methods data collection tool, SenseMaker, which helps visualize patterns across stories from a wide range of people. Public health professionals were invited to share short stories of their experiences—based on the prompt: “Imagine you are trying to explain to someone the current state of public health in the United States right now, what story might you tell?"

Follow-up questions allowed them to tell us more about their story. Results of the analysis of themes across stories will highlight strengths within the public health systems, as well as areas of needed improvement.  

We are committed to sharing these stories and the main themes that emerge from them with policy and decision makers locally and at the State level to allow for evidence-based responses to public health needs and challenges.

This project is a follow up to our Harnessing Knowledge, Elevated Learnings: Iowa's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.