Strengthening U.S. public health systems and services to improve and protect the nation's health is a priority. Our team at Cornell University is a CDC National Capacity Building Assistance (CBA) Partner helping revitalize the U.S. public health system and its workforce under CDC-RFA-PW-24-0080. We are poised to serve. As a Category B grantee, our overarching goal is to support all state, territorial, local, and tribal (STLT) government public health workers who identify as Health Equity Promoters (regardless of job title) to help them bolster organizational and systems infrastructure and performance across the public health system; we aim to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities. In this project year, our specific objectives are to develop, deliver, and ensure access to CBA across strategic areas (Organizational Capacity, Workforce Development, Data Modernization, Partnerships, Policy and Programs) in order to: strengthen awareness and understanding of recommended processes, policies, programs; enhance skills to support decision-making; and improve organizational effectiveness.

Our Strategy 2 Proposal comprises 14 projects that leverage our experience, expertise, and partnerships to help STLTs strengthen their approaches and improve their outcomes in cross-cutting topic areas. Specifically, we propose providing CBA to segments of the STLTs related to: Advanced Molecular Detection; Climate and Health; Implementing a One Health Approach; Collaborative Public Health Leadership Development; Communities in ACTion; Engaging American Indian/Alaska Native Teens and Adults in Swim Instructor Training; Enhancing Modeling and Forecasting; Climate and Health Surveillance; Foodborne Outbreak Investigation; Rural Public Health Training; Strategic Skills Training; Epidemiology Capacity for Natural and Human-Inducted Disasters; and the Public Health
AmeriCorps Program.

As a federal land-grant institution, extension of our university’s education, training, and research capacities, and engagement and service for impacts are core to our mission. Cornell’s Public Health Program unites public health expertise and resources from across Cornell University via the Center for Health Impacts (CCHI) to advance and improve the health of communities. Our team's commitment to this is evident through our level of public engagement and provision of high quality, engaged, and proven CBA.

To fulfill the goal and objectives defined by CDC’s National Center for STLT Public Health Infrastructure and Workforce, our team, in collaboration with strategic national partners and subject matter experts, proposed fresh, evidence-based approaches that demonstrate results across multiple areas of public health, including organizational capacity and performance improvement, workforce, data modernization, partnership development, and policy and programs. Our 14 project work plans employ methods which unite community-driven, culturally-informed
approaches with implementation science to both design right-fit solutions, and evaluate implementation and outcomes to improve processes and contribute evidence related to promising practices. Our team’s methods have been refined over years through the ongoing development and delivery of CBA with segments of the public health workforce, including STLT public health workers across the country, and include partnership development; working group development and management; landscape analysis; gap (and asset) analysis; policy analysis; surveys; ethnography; design labs; curriculum development; training development and delivery (online, in person, a/ synchronous, convenings, conferences); technical assistance provision; enhancing informatics systems; and policy/ process development.