Invest in Public Health for a Healthier America

As COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, Americans are cautiously beginning to go about their lives with some sense of normalcy: We’re reuniting with friends and family, sending our children back to school, and returning to our places of work. As we re-enter our communities, it is important to reflect on lessons learned from the trials we have endured together these past few years. Crucial among these lessons is supporting a robust public health system.

Americans have seen that our public health system is critical for protecting the health of individuals and communities. It is our frontline force against future pandemics, substance abuse, and chronic health crises, underpinning the well-being of our neighborhoods and institutions.

Before COVID-19, the U.S.’s public health defense was left underfunded and unprepared. We allowed for inequities to permeate our health system, totaling an annual average of $93 billion in excess medical costs and $42 billion in lost productivity. We did not properly understand the value of a robust public health system. But as we approach 1 million COVID-19 deaths — a milestone the U.S. is expected to reach in the next several weeks — and continue to tally losses from ongoing crises like the opioid and obesity epidemics, we can no longer neglect the importance of promoting public health.

Public health drives 80% of health outcomes. By controlling infectious diseases, promoting healthy eating and active living, and preventing injuries, an effective public health system can provide an opportunity for all to achieve good health.

Our response to the pandemic shined a new spotlight on public health, and with it, the need for unprecedented resources and willpower. Now, we have an opportunity to revamp our public health system so that it can effectively engage in the battles of today and prepare for the challenges of tomorrow.

Last year, we had the chance to serve on a multi-sector task force assembled by the Bipartisan Policy Center to figure out how we can use the influx of resources and awareness to modernize and transform public health in our country. Together, we developed a five-year plan, entitled Public Health Forward, that outlines steps we can take to create healthier communities across the country.

Through strategic investments in technology, workers, and community partnerships, we can revitalize our public health system. By working together on consensus-driven, bipartisan policies, we can build an America that protects and promotes public health through modernized laws and public policy, and in turn, advance health equity.

Like ourselves, many of our fellow task force members served in state and local government as governors, state legislators, county commissioners, and mayors. Having served in these positions, we know that change must start at the state and local level. While it is critical for the federal government and private sector to complement this effort, the responsibility of realizing this vision for a healthier America is on people like us. This effort must come from the ground up.

Policymakers and health officials can take the lead by:

• building relationships with members of our communities to deliver culturally relevant interventions and practices
• leveraging multi-sector partnerships to improve conditions in our communities so that our constituents can live healthier lives
• recruiting and retaining a diverse public health workforce trained to promote health equity
• modernizing our data collection and sharing systems
• providing flexible funding to public health programs so that they can achieve greater social and economic impact
• revamping public health governance structures to address new challenges and restore faith in public health

We should take this opportunity to kickstart transformational investments in public health in America. It is time for all of us — policymakers, industry executives, community leaders, and constituents — to work in a bipartisan fashion on bold health policies that will change people’s lives for the better.

Only by working together can we move public health forward.

Mike Beebe, a Democrat, was a member of the Arkansas State Senate for 20 years before serving as Arkansas Gov. from 2007 to 2015.

John Kasich, a Republican, served as a U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1983 to 2001, and then as Ohio Gov. from 2011 to 2019.

The authors are members of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Public Health Forward Task Force. BPC recently produced a 60-second video to highlight the impact of public health and the report’s recommendations.