Core Public Health Services (CPHS) 2019 Needs Assessment

​After updating our Core Public Health Services in 2019, CALPHO and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) contracted with Habile Consulting LLC to develop and conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to 1) Understand current statewide implementation and spending on core public health services, and 2) Estimate the cost to fully deliver core public health services statewide based on the current service delivery paradigm. ​
Methodology
We surveyed every Colorado local public health agency and CDPHE to assess their level of implementation and spending for each of the 12 foundational capabilities and services that comprise the Core Public Health Services (CPHS). This level is represented by a score between 1-10, with 10 being full implementation. Each agency has a score for each capability and service, as well as a composite score for the entire suite. The statewide score is a composite of scores for all local public health agencies (LPHAs) and CDPHE. We also collected information for each LPHA on governance structures, workforce, and funding sources, and funding type.

​The resulting assessment provides enough granular detail to aid each agency’s improvement planning while providing an statewide portrait of Colorado's CPHS implementation to inform state-level policymaking and advocacy.

Download the overall report.
Download the executive summary. 
Some Key Findings
  • The state of Colorado is approximately 61% implemented across the 12 CPHS.
  • The service Access to and Linkage with Health Care and the capability Health Equity & Social Determinants of Health are the least implemented statewide.
  • The capability Assessment & Planning (which includes data capacities) and the service Communicable Disease Prevention, Education & Control are the most implemented statewide.
  • Colorado spent about $278 million on CPHS in 2018 (mostly from federal funding sources), and the assessment estimates that we would need to spend or allocate $188 million more to support full CPHS implementation.
Next Steps
The COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted the public health transformation movement, but CALPHO, CDPHE, and public health system stakeholders are eager to revive it. This unprecedented challenge has left the public health system in need of rebuilding, not just transformation. But it also showed the world how necessary public health is to our well-being, our economies, and our democracy. Some key next steps for CALPHO, CDPHE, and public health stakeholders include:
  • Develop a roadmap: this assessment showed us how far we have to go and some key points along the way. Now we need to identify and take the steps to get there.
  • Identify action items for specific LPHAs in specific services or capabilities, such as implementing cross-jurisdictional service sharing.
  • Adapt and/or expand this assessment into a longitudinal capacity assessment and inform a system-wide accountability framework.