Barriers and Incentives to Rural Health Department Accreditation.

Context: Accreditation of local health departments has been identified as a crucial strategy for strengthening the public health infrastructure. Rural local health departments (RLHDs) face many challenges including lower levels of staffing and funding than local health departments serving metropolitan or urban areas; simultaneously their populations experience health disparities related to risky health behaviors, health outcomes, and access to medical care. Through accreditation, rural local health departments can become better equipped to meet the needs of their communities.

Patterns and predictors of local health department accreditation in Missouri.

Background: The Healthy People 2020 goal for the public health system is "to ensure that Federal, State, Tribal, and local health agencies have the necessary infrastructure to effectively provide essential public health services." To address this goal, Missouri established the first statewide, voluntary accreditation program of local health departments (LHDs) and began accrediting the LHDs in 2003. The purpose of this study was to identify organizational, structural, and workforce factors related to accreditation status of LHDs in Missouri.

Accreditation/Performance assessment on-site reviews in Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, and Washington: implications for States and an evolving national model.

In 1988, the Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health identified the core functions of assessment, policy development, and assurance as key roles of the public health governmental sector. Some states have developed accreditation or performance assessment programs to measure how state and/or local government carry out these functions. Several of these programs share a common "on-site review" component defined as a site-specific visit to assess, observe, interview, review, evaluate, and/or survey a local/state agency or program regarding its ability to meet a set of public health standards.

Public health laws and implications for a national accreditation program: parallel roadways without intersection?

Public health law has been one of the leading contributors to the extension of life expectancy in the 20th century. Nonetheless, the legal infrastructure supporting public health law in the United States is underdeveloped and nonuniform. With national interest growing in public health agency accreditation, the individual legal approach taken by states may pose an obstacle to wholesale adoption of a proposed voluntary national model.