From leadership research to district action: Partnership Between Local Health Departments and Schools of Public Health or Public Health Programs: An Analysis of National Profiles of Local Health Departments

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Purpose: This study examines (1) the change in partnership between local health departments (LHDs) and schools of public health or public health programs (SPHs/PHPs) from 2016 to 2019, and (2) the LHD characteristics associated with this partnership. Background: The Council on Education for Public Health updated accreditation criteria in 2016, shifting from core curricula to competencies to better prepare public health graduates for the workforce. Strong partnerships between LHDs and SPHs/PHPs can enhance practical training and employment opportunities for students, ultimately bolstering the public health workforce. Methods: We analyzed the 2016 and 2019 National Profiles of Local Health Departments, using descriptive statistics to evaluate partnership levels and multivariable logistic regression to identify LHD characteristics associated with collaboration. Results: The partnership between LHDs and SPHs/PHPs was suboptimal and unevenly distributed. Engagement in activities like formal training agreements and advisory roles declined. Notably, the presence of formal written agreements for staff training and active recruitment of SPH/PHP graduates by LHDs showed significant improvements (χ2 = 3.84; p = 0.049; χ2 = 8.19; p = 0.004). Factors such as top executive characteristics, workforce capacity, and governance context influenced these partnerships. Conclusions: The study identifies gaps in LHD engagement with SPHs/PHPs and highlights opportunities for advocacy. Addressing these gaps can lead to a more competent workforce, thereby benefiting both LHDs and SPHs/PHPs in their service to communities.

Study methods

This research utilized the 2016 and 2019 National Profile of Local Health Departments Surveys. The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) is a non-profit organization that represents local health departments across the United States (US). Since 1989, NACCHO has been conducting the National Profile of Local Health Departments, commonly referred to as the “Profile Study”, every three years. The purpose of the Profile Study is to create a comprehensive and accurate description of LHDs’ infrastructure and practices. To identify the LHDs included in the profile studies, NACCHO uses a database derived from previous ones, along with consultations with state health agencies and local health officials’ associations. All LHDs in the study population received core questionnaires, while selected groups of LHDs received one of two sets of supplementary questions, referred to as modules. NACCHO employs stratified random sampling without replacement, with strata defined by the population size served by each LHD. We refer to the study website for additional information on NACCHO profile studies [20]. The Profile Study employs a standardized survey instrument that has been refined through multiple cycles of expert consultation, cognitive testing, and pilot assessments. These iterative methodological improvements support the content validity and reliability of the measures used to assess LHD infrastructure and activities.

Limitations

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A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Gulzar H. Shah; Katerina Massengale; Tran Ha Nguyen. Partnership Between Local Health Departments and Schools of Public Health or Public Health Programs: An Analysis of National Profiles of Local Health Departments. Healthcare (2026-03-26). https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare14070846

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.