The Bureau of Environmental and Local Public Health is comprised of two sections: Environmental Health and Local Public Health Performance. The bureau focuses on assisting local boards of health and other public health partners to address health disparities, health priorities, and to provide technical assistance on environmental health issues and epidemiology and surveillance of environmental health-related diseases. With the bureau’s enhanced focus on technical assistance, the bureau ensures that local public health systems are well-equipped to tackle various health challenges and improve overall community health outcomes.
Local Public Health Performance services include:
Promote and support the development of the public health systems.
Improve local public health’s capability to address health priorities and disparities.
Advance the goal of healthy people in healthy communities.
Local Public Health Performance Key Roles
The Local Public Health Performance (LPHP) Team promotes and supports the development of the public health system to improve local public health's capability to address health priorities and health disparities, ultimately leading to healthy people in healthy communities.
Provide guidance and direct you to the appropriate resources related to public health services, 10 Essential Public Health Services, foundational capabilities, and population health strategies. They serve as a valuable point of contact when you have questions related to the Local Public Health Services Contract, Boards of Health, Boards of Supervisors, general public health questions or challenges, and local or regional public health-related concerns. If you're unsure where to turn on public health issues or have urgent needs, please reach out to your community health consultant.
Provide consultations for Local Public Health agencies who are conducting Community Health Assessments (CHA) and developing Community Health Improvement Plans (CHIP). TA may include guidance on data collection and analysis, community engagement strategies, prioritization of health issues, evidence-based planning, and alignment with foundational public health capabilities to improve population health outcomes.
Provide technical assistance in strategic planning (SP), performance management (PM), and quality improvement (QI) to support public health agencies. These practices involve defining organizational direction (SP), using data to measure and improve performance (PM), and applying continuous frameworks to enhance processes and achieve measurable quality improvements (QI).
Provide technical assistance and expertise in key areas of workforce planning including workforce assessments, workforce development planning, recruiting and retention strategies. They also focus on enhancing onboarding processes, succession planning, and professional development in public health and leadership. Their efforts aim to build a resilient, skilled workforce capable of addressing Iowa’s public health needs.
Public health strives to improve the quality of life for all Iowans by assuring access to evidence-based population-health programs, services and activities in the following areas:
Promote healthy living
Prevent injuries and violence
Protect against environmental hazards
Assure access to quality health services
Prevent epidemics and the spread of disease
Improve and support public health performance
Prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies
Iowa's Local Public Health Infographic - provides a quick overview of Iowa's Local Public Health agencies. (Data from the FY23 Local Public Health Systems Survey.)
Local Board of Health
Local Boards of Health (LBOH) have responsibility for public health in their jurisdiction. They support local public health vision, mission, and advocacy and encourage community involvement in setting public health priorities. Their dedicated leadership ensures the success of meeting the opportunities and challenges within public health.
National Association for Local Boards of Health(NALBOH) - informs, guides, and is the national voice for boards of health. In today’s public health system, the leadership role of boards of health makes them an essential link between public health services and a healthy community.
Sunshine Advisories -resource for citizens as well as local governmental employees and officials. The "Sunshine Advisories" discuss basic requirements and the application of Iowa's "sunshine" laws.
Iowa Code contains laws written by legislators and signed by the Governor. Iowa Administrative Code (IAC) are the rules containing the details that accompany the law.
The Iowa Public Health Leadership Academy is a collaborative effort between the University of Iowa College of Public Health and the Iowa Department of Public Health. The Academy provides information and training to local board of health and local board of supervisor members to effectively meet the requirements of their roles.
The Academy has hosted fourteen webinars on various public health topics and operational functions. Webinar topics included:
Advancing Policy in Public Health
Confidentiality/HIPAA/Conflict of Interest
Contracts
Ethics and Decision Making in Public Health
Financial Management
Health Equity: Why it Matters and How to Achieve It
Overview of Governmental Public Health System
Performance Improvement
Public Health Law in Iowa
Putting Local in the Local Public Health:Local Roles and Responsibilities
The Foundational Public Health Services (FPHS) outlines the unique responsibilities of public health and can be used to explain the vital role of public health in a community; identify capacity and resource gaps; determine the cost for assuring foundational activities; and justify funding needs.
an Operational Skills Workshop series for Local Public Health Agencies. If you have any questions on any of these workshops or are interested in any other topics, please contact your Community Health Consultant. All sessions were held on Zoom and recorded. The recordings are available below:
The following are related to Public Health. Iowa Code contains laws written by legislators and signed by the Governor. Iowa Administrative Code (IAC) are the rules containing the details that accompany the law. This is not an all inclusive list.
These reports provide an overview of Iowa’s local public health system and results of the qualitative and quantitative data collected through the annual Local Public Health Systems Survey. Information from these reports can be used by a variety of audiences to not only gain a better understanding of the local governmental public health system, but to also inform planning activities for future public health initiatives.
