Public Health Workforce . In he Face of the Crisis.

The United States is the only profit driven health care system in the world (Bramming,2016) . and perhaps it is no coincidence that the country also has the most expensive health care per capita a total of 10,000 dollars per patient . This accounted for 17.8 % of the countries GDP . And according to the Centers for Medicare an Medicare (CMS) these estimates will rise b the year 2025 to become 20.1% of the countries GDP or Gross Domestic Product(AH &DB,2017).  What does this mean for Public Health ?. An effective public health system that can assure the Nations health requires the collaborative efforts of a complex network of people and organizations in the public health agencies ; at the National , State and Local level(NAP,1988) . Alarms signaling an impending public health work force shortage are growing more urgent . New Findings show that the U.S shortage will grow increasingly worse over the next few years and as it stands we have available to service a population of  over 270,000 people mearly 250 public health workers (NAP,2015) . Very few American are aware that this crisis even exists .At a public health work force briefing on Capital Hill in late Februery 2016 ; the associated Schools of public health released a first of its kind assessment of the looming  public health work force shortage , which has been growing steadily worse since 1980 . According to the report at least 28 percent of the current public health work force nearly 110,000 workers will be eligible to retire during the next presidential term ,  the very term we find ourselves in at present . An additional 250,000 public health workers are needed to dodge a work force shortage that would leave the Nation vulnerable to a range of pending threats , including infectious disease , pandemics , bioterrorism and natural disasters (Harrison,2016) .  Globally the picture is bleeker ; according to a 2006 WHO report ; at least 57 countries most of them in Sub Saharan Africa , Bangladesh , India , Indonesia and now Venezuela face crippling public health workforce shortages .

References

Bramming, G (2016) Health Care Spending :Plenty of Blame to go Around. American Health and Drug Benefit vol9 no8 .

Harrison, S (2016) Confronting the Public Health Workforce Crisis

NAP (1988) The Future of Public Health .Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health . Division of public Health Services. Institute of Medicine    .