TITLE
Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all necessary documents and any subsequent amendments, including any amendments to the award amount, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to accept and expend funding in an amount not to exceed $6,719,638, for enhancing the public health workforce and infrastructure, for the period of December 1, 2022 through November 30, 2027; and
Increase appropriations in the Health Fund Group in the Health and Human Services Department by $6,719,638, offset by grant revenue. (Citywide)
DISCUSSION
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is awarding $6,719,638 to the Health and Human Services Department (Department) to enhance the City’s public health workforce and infrastructure.
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the critical importance of investing in a robust public health system. While COVID-19 response has been successful, it has also exposed new challenges and accentuated long-standing weaknesses, including, but not limited to: health equity concerns with racial/ethnic and socio-geographic disparities in health access and outcomes; maintenance of regular operations when staff were redirected to large scale responses; implementation of testing, contact tracing, and vaccine infrastructure with insufficient historical investment for current needs; and insufficient administrative (financial management, grants management, contracts management, and personnel services) and communications infrastructure required to manage and track large scale funding streams effectively, recruit efficiently, and communicate broadly. COVID-19 affected nearly every aspect of healthcare and public health, laying bare disparities and gaps in some conditions and worsening others. This funding is intended to support critical infrastructure needs in the short-term, while also making strategic investments that will have lasting effects on public health.
Of the total funding, $6,311,662...
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