Public health services and systems research (PHSSR) is a growing and evolving field that 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 recent COVID-19 pandemic, public health emergencies and disaster response, and new sources of public health funding.

In 2012, AcademyHealth led the first research agenda setting initiative for the discipline by bringing together practice, policy, and research experts in the field. This monumental effort defined what PHSSR is and identified key areas for future study. The agenda established areas of inquiry in the domains of: public health workforce; public health structure and performance; public health financing; and public health information technology. Given that substantial work has occurred in this space since then, including the funding and establishment of the first dedicated public health workforce research center, PHSSR’s evolution warranted an updated research agenda.

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 more recent COVID-19 pandemic. This agenda-setting effort was supported with funding from Kaiser Permanente and conducted collaboratively with the American Public Health Association and Betty Bekemeier, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN and Erika Martin, PhD, MPH, experts in the field. The recently released research agenda prioritizes seven domains for future research: health equity; cross-sector partnerships and engagement; data and information technology; financing and resources; workforce; law and governance; and communication and narrative. Promoting health equity is a cross-cutting priority throughout all of these domains.

Since its creation, the PHSSR field has been supported by both the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice (JPHMP) and AcademyHealth, providing platforms for the dissemination of rigorous research and insights from the field and helping guide the work of public health system improvement. The PHSSR Interest Group at AcademyHealth, established in 2001, is consistently one of AcademyHealth’s largest interest groups, facilitating dissemination of the latest work.

The next AcademyHealth PHSSR IG session will take place at the 2024 Annual Research Meeting from June 29 – July 2 in Baltimore, Maryland. The call for abstracts for the PHSSR IG session is now open. Abstracts can be submitted online and are due March 7, 2024. Relevant abstracts submitted to the main meeting can also be submitted to the PHSSR IG. The PHSSR IG is specifically looking for work on:

• 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, and how they relate to the social determinants of health, population health outcomes across the life course, and/or health equity
• 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 politization, 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
• 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.

The PHSSR IG session at ARM serves as an important opportunity to share rigorous and timely PHSSR research, facilitate connections among PHSSR researchers, draw attention to the importance of PHSSR work for policymakers and funders, and support the work of early career and student researchers to continue to grow the field. If you would like to be added to the PHSSR IG email list and notified of social events for the interest group, please email Dr. Valerie Yeager at vyeager@iu.edu.

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Casey P. Balio, PhD, is a research assistant professor at the East Tennessee State University (ETSU) College of Public Health’s Center for Rural Health Research and Department of Health Services Management & Policy. Balio’s research focuses on variations in public health systems and Medicaid programs.

Valerie Yeager is a Professor at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health in Indianapolis. As a researcher focused on public health services and systems (PHSSR), Dr. Yeager studies the recruitment and retention of the public health workforce and organizational strategies for system improvement.