The field of public health services and systems research (PHSSR) focuses on building an evidence-base regarding governmental public health practice, policy, and infrastructure. While this body of research has been an important part of generating the evidence base for public health practice for many years, there is a renewed sense of interest and attention in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing natural disasters, and stressors to the public health system. Perhaps now more than ever, there is a sense of urgency to produce and share rigorous public health research into the world. The upcoming AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (ARM) PHSSR Interest Group session provides one such opportunity to do so on a national scale.
In 2023 AcademyHealth led a new agenda-setting effort to “[re]build the public health system” in response to the agenda being over 10 years old and the many changes the field has faced in the past decade, especially as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research agenda prioritizes a number of domains for future research, such as workforce, financing & resources, and cross-sector partnerships & engagement. Read more about that agenda here.
The PHSSR IG session will occur during AcademyHealth’s 2025 Annual Research Meeting, which will take place in Minneapolis between June 7-10. The call for abstracts is now open, with submissions due Thursday, March 6, 2025. Abstracts that were submitted to the main ARM meeting may also be submitted to the PHSSR IG. Topics of focus for the PHSSR IG session include:
- Building public health system resilience, especially in relation to preparedness for, response to, and recovery from public health emergencies like COVID-19 and natural disasters
- Evaluating local, state, or federal policies to improve public health services and the public health system
- Emerging threats to population health, such as opioid misuse, infectious disease, and chronic disease, and their impact on public health services and the public health system
- Issues related to public health resources and other financial/economic issues, including their politicization, prioritization, and management
- Public health system-wide integration and/or cross-sector collaborations and their respective impacts on population health outcomes
- Public health infrastructure including workforce capacity and data systems, including research related to the CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure Grant in the areas of workforce, foundational capabilities, and data modernization
- Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approach for PHSSR research such as measuring public health system-wide integration, cross-sector collaborations, resource allocation, workforce development, public health informatics, other public health services, etc.
- Submissions aligned with research priorities from the recent Public Health Services and Systems research agenda
Submissions will be considered based on their alignment with PHSSR topics, quality, rigor, relevance for policy and to the field, timeliness, and clarity. In addition, students and early career researchers are encouraged to submit.
Since the development of AcademyHealth’s first research agenda setting for PHSSR in 2012, and with the new(ish) 2023 update, the ARM has represented a foundational opportunity for researchers in the field to share the most up-to-date research in public health and connect with other researchers in the field. As the field continues to evolve, the 2025 PHSSR IG Session at ARM will serve as an important opportunity for the field to reconnect and get our work out there. For more information on the call for abstracts or the PHSSR IG, please contact our IG’s lead: Casey Balio at balioc@etsu.edu.
Come join us – Minneapolis is gorgeous in June. We’ve got a giant cherry on a spoon, if you didn’t know.
Dr. JP Leider is the Director of the Center for Public Health Systems at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and a member of the JPHMP Editorial Board. He is available at leider (at) umn (dot) edu.
Dr. Jason Orr is a researcher with the Center for Public Health Systems at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and is experienced in policy analysis, mixed-methods research, and systems design & analysis. He holds a BS in chemical and biological engineering and an MPH with an emphasis in infectious diseases and zoonoses from Kansas State University, and a PhD in systems engineering from Colorado State University. He has ‘pracademic’ interests in public health services frameworks (eg, Foundational Public Health Services), collaborative service delivery (ie, cross-jurisdictional sharing or cross-sectoral collaboration), public health finance and workforce issues, and other transformation and innovation initiatives for public health systems.
Dr. Casey Balio is a Research Assistant Professor at the East Tennessee State University Center for Rural Health and Research and the Department of Health Services Management and Policy. Her research focuses on the intersection of rural health, health policy, and public health. She is also a member of the Consortium for Workforce Research in Public Health (CWORPH), focused on public health systems and workforce research, and the ETSU/NORC Rural Health Research Center, focused on conducting policy-relevant rural health research. She is currently serving as Chair of the AcademyHealth Public Health Services and Systems (PHSSR) Interest Group.