Public Health Leadership Forum

Improving health outcomes for all people

As more people gain access to health insurance and regular care from clinicians, public health departments are increasingly able to turn their attention to the “upstream” community factors that affect people’s health and wellbeing, factors such as access to clean water and nutritious food, education and employment, and safe places to socialize and exercise. To support this evolution, RESOLVE established and manages the Public Health Leadership Forum (PHLF).

The PHLF gives public health thought leaders and practitioners a well-organized and facilitated platform to share insights, respond to emerging challenges and opportunities in the field, and develop shared visions for how best to provide leadership in an ever-changing health landscape. The PHLF develops practical tools and frameworks necessary for public health to effectively achieve its mission of improving health outcomes for all people in partnership with health care organizations, social service agencies, and other entities.

One of the PHLF’s most influential initiatives was the articulation of a framework for Foundational Public Health Services, which defines a core set of services and capabilities that should be present everywhere for the health system to work anywhere. This framework—developed from work pioneered at the state and local levels and with adequate detail to determine the amount of resources necessary to establish and maintain it—has been adopted widely and continues to be built on by the PHLF, as well as the Public Health National Center for Innovation, Public Health Accreditation Board, and others.

The PHLF has also articulated a vision for high-achieving public health departments, proposed that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should serve as the nation’s Chief Health Strategist, developed a framework that supports enhanced collaboration between health care and public health, and advanced the case for a federal financing system that will sufficiently fund public health capabilities across the country.