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Regionalization

Regionalization

Shortly after his appointment in the spring of 2007, Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach conducted a series of eight Regional Health Dialogues across the state.  With input from over 1,000 attendees Commissioner Auerbach developed a set of guiding principles and outlined five priorities for the Department.

One of these priorities was to “Build Public Health Capacity at Local and State Levels”.  A critical related goal was to support a planning effort under the leadership of the Boston University School of Public Health in partnership with MDPH, local public health officials, academics, legislative leaders and other state agencies to develop a regional public health system for Massachusetts. For more information about this project, please visit Massachusetts Public Health Regionalization Project.

To meet the many challenges of public health in the 21st century, the state health department is working to strengthen local health departments and boards of health.  The Commissioner is committed to increasing direct and indirect support of local health.  A strong partnership between state and local health will improve our ability to achieve the core functions and ten essential services of public health defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  For a directory including contact information for local health in all Massachusetts cities and towns, please visit Massachusetts Association of Health Boards Directory.

To increase local health capacity across program areas Commissioner Auerbach has:

  • ensured that his leadership team actively participates in regionalization efforts;
  • increased funding that could be used with some flexibility to better coordinate services and help eliminate silos, and
  • re-opened the Southeast Regional Office in the fall of 2008.

An important function of the Office of Healthy Communities is to help coordinate information and resources across program areas. The following links are provided to assist in this coordination.

 

This information is provided by the Office of Healthy Communities within the Department of Public Health.