The Kresge Foundation And The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Award Joint Grant To Institute For Alternative Futures To Explore Future Of Public Health In The U.S.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What will public health in the U.S. look like in 2030?  To explore this question and identify implications for today's strategies, the Kresge Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) have awarded the Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) funding to develop scenarios describing expectable, challenging, and visionary futures of public health in the U.S.

Local, state, and national organizations and leaders in public health will be able to use the Public Health 2030 Scenarios to consider uncertainties, trends, and forces that will shape public health and public health organizations.  The scenarios will offer a tool for them to inform future-oriented and successful long-term strategies and efforts, rather than making decisions and developing programs and systems solely based on the past and present.

IAF's project will consider a comprehensive set of factors that will influence local and national public health.  These scenarios will build on IAF's previous work in health and health equity, such as Primary Care 2025, Vulnerability 2030, and Health and Health Care 2032, while also considering public health innovation, public health finance, technologies, automation, evidence-based care and administration, health inequity, and public health roles, policy, and administration.

Questions that the scenarios will address include: How will the focus, execution, and evaluation of the 10 essential public health functions change by 2030?  Will some of these essential functions be transitioned to private providers, the marketplace, or technology?  How will the roles of communities, community-based organizations, and national or regional non-profit organizations in shaping public health grow and change?  In what ways will the local, state, and national fiscal and economic challenges impact public health agencies, departments, and personnel?  What are sustainable financing options for local health departments?  How will public health roles evolve?  Will the role of industry and businesses in public health change?  What will be the trade-offs and tensions between the regulatory and advocacy roles of public health departments?  Will prevention become a more consistent focus of society and health care?  How will the media and general public see and interpret public health issues?

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