Will the damage to public health be long-lasting?

ABSTRACT

The current U.S. public health system and infrastructure are insufficient to meet demands in many areas of population health, including responding to public health emergencies. For public health agencies at the federal, state, and local levels, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed gaps in emergency preparedness and response capacity due to the lack of sustained funding for both governmental public health and their academic partners over the last decade. Making the case for maintaining readiness in the interdisaster period can be difficult and the public health system is not blameless in this failure. A meager and inadequate evidence base for public health emergency preparedness has made it difficult to demonstrate return on investment or effectively disseminate lessons learned or best practices. However, the politicization of the public health emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in efforts to legislatively limit public health emergency powers, forced public health leaders to resign, and prevented the adequate protection of communities from excess morbidity and mortality, must be addressed head-on to rebuild the nation's public health system postpandemic.