Understanding the local public health workforce: labels versus substance.

Background: The workforce is a key component of the nation's public health (PH) infrastructure, but little is known about the skills of local health department (LHD) workers to guide policy and planning.

Purpose: To profile a sample of LHD workers using classification schemes for PH work (the substance of what is done) and PH job titles (the labeling of what is done) to determine if work content is consistent with job classifications.

Methods: A secondary analysis was conducted on data collected from 2,734 employees from 19 LHDs using a taxonomy of 151 essential tasks performed, knowledge possessed, and resources available.

The influence of management and environment on local health department organizational structure and adaptation: a longitudinal network analysis.

Objective: The nation's 2862 local health departments (LHDs) are the primary means for assuring public health services for all populations. The objective of this study is to assess the effect of organizational network analysis on management decisions in LHDs and to demonstrate the technique's ability to detect organizational adaptation over time.

Design And Setting: We conducted a longitudinal network analysis in a full-service LHD with 113 employees serving about 187,000 persons.

Development and evaluation of a prototype search engine to meet public health information needs.

Grey literature is information not available through commercial publishers. It is a sizable and valuable information source for public health (PH) practice but because documents are not formally indexed the information is difficult to locate. Public Health Information Search (PHIS) was developed to address this problem.

Evolution of coauthorship in public health services and systems research.

Context: Public health services and systems research (PHSSR) focuses on the structure, organization, and legal basis of domestic public health activities and their effect on population health. An accurate description of the field is needed to empower funding agencies and other stakeholders to coordinate PHSSR activities and to foster the development of the field. The purpose of the study is to characterize the emerging community of researchers engaged in PHSSR.

Growth of a scientific community of practice public health services and systems research.

Background: Public health services and systems research (PHSSR) is an emerging discipline that examines the organization, financing, and delivery of public health services.

Purpose: The objective of this descriptive study is to provide insight into the discipline's growth by examining the researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who are engaged in PHSSR and their expertise, sources of funding, collaboration patterns, productivity, and challenges.

Methods: A 27-item online survey was conducted and analyzed in 2010.

A comparative study of 11 local health department organizational networks.

Context: Although the nation's local health departments (LHDs) share a common mission, variability in administrative structures is a barrier to identifying common, optimal management strategies. There is a gap in understanding what unifying features LHDs share as organizations that could be leveraged systematically for achieving high performance.

Objective: To explore sources of commonality and variability in a range of LHDs by comparing intraorganizational networks.