HHS is investing $750 million to prevent diseases, detect them early, manage conditions before they become severe, and provide states and communities the resources they need to promote healthy living. To accomplish these goals, some of the funds will be allotted for health IT projects to improve the public health infrastructure and for research and tracking.
Funding for $298 million will be used to help promote health and wellness in local communities with $222 million to be used to prevent heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and other conditions by reducing tobacco use, preventing obesity, and reducing health disparities. The program will launch a consolidated chronic disease prevention grant program.
An additional $182 million will help improve access to preventive care, including increasing awareness of the new prevention benefits provided under the new healthcare law. The funds will also help increase availability and the use of immunizations. Of the total amount, funding for $70 million will assist communities with the coordination and integration of primary care services into publicly funded community mental health and other community-based behavioral health settings.
In general, $137 million will go overall to boost the public health infrastructure and provide workforce training to help states and local health departments. Funding for $40 million is allotted to improve the public health infrastructure and funding for $45 million will go to support the public health workforce investment in information technology and training.
For research and tracking purposes, $133 million is allotted to help collect data to monitor the impact of the Affordable Care Act. Of that amount $84 million will go for healthcare surveillance and planning with another $49 million to go for research with the goal to identify and disseminate evidence-based recommendations on important public health challenges.
For more details, go to www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/prevention02092011b.html.
