According to a new study by the University of Delaware, many public health workers have been redeployed to COVID-related duties during the pandemic response, leaving other critical public health issues with reduced or suspended services.
The cruel impact of COVID-19, the virus that emerged in late 2019 and has claimed 5 million lives to date, is chronicled in daily headlines. It has robbed us of loved ones, jobs, plans and so much more. The impact on those who treat the sick and dying has been the focus of much study and the exhaustion of health care workers pulling extra shifts and covering for inadequate staffing is well documented. But the true measure of this scourge is yet to be known. Now a new study, published on October 14 by PLoS-One, shows another layer of impact — how response to the virus has pounded the U.S. public health system, especially its workers and the critical services they deliver to millions. The study, led by Jennifer Horney, professor and founding director of the University of Delaware’s Epidemiology Program, sheds chilling light on the state of the public-health workforce and raises significant questions about how public health services and programs can be sustained in the future. Of special concern is the fact that many public health workers have been redeployed to COVID-related duties during the pandemic response, leaving other critical public health issues with reduced or suspended services. That means investigation of other communicable diseases, food-related illness, public-health surveillance, chronic diseases and other critical services have suffered. “That impacts the overall health of the population,” said Horney. “Those things didn’t just go away. People still had high blood pressure, they were dying of substance abuse in increasing numbers, but those programs were put on hold.”
She and her collaborators wanted to capture some of that data and look down the road, too. “What does the workforce look like going forward?” she said. It’s a troubling snapshot, based on survey responses from 298 people working in public health roles, including government agencies and academic departments. The surveys measured professional experience, mental and physical health status, and career plans, with some reflection of how their views and experiences had changed from pre-pandemic days to mid-pandemic days. But how do you define the population of public-health workers? It’s not easy, Horney said. It includes everyone from epidemiologists, laboratory workers and environmental health specialists to those who work in prevention programs and those who work to educate the public on a wide array of health issues. Because state systems vary so widely, it is difficult to get a clear picture of how many public health workers there are in the U.S. Read more...
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