Funding concerns lead to new focus on public health finance.

PUBLIC health; PUBLIC finance; PUBLIC health personnel; FINANCIAL management; UNITED States appropriations & expenditures

This article reports on the new movement that would advance the field of U.S. public health finance as a subfield within public health. The movement is aimed at strengthening the nation's public health system and ensure its sustainability. Fueling the effort is a growing sense of urgency to increase the public health work force's understanding of funding and its impact on the public health system. The movement's organizers say that within the public health work force, knowledge of the sources and uses of public health funding is minimal, but dwindling resources, competing priorities for funding and an increased focus on accountability have created an immediate need to implement financial management practices in public health.