Alignment of Public Health Agency Demographics With Populations Served

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Services Research
• Workforce Development

Background:

• The public health system's ability to serve diverse communities is crucial.
• Measuring workforce representativeness is essential for equitable public health.
• Existing metrics may not fully capture agency alignment with community demographics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and deploy an agency-level representation index.
• To quantify the alignment between public health agency workforce demographics and community demographics.
• To provide a tool for assessing and improving public health workforce diversity.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the 2024 Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS), US Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS), and other relevant profiles.
• Calculated a representation index for 48 state health agency central offices and 34 Big City Health Coalition (BCHC) member agencies.
• Explored demographic categories and agency characteristics in relation to the representation index.

Main Results:

• Significant variation in demographic representation was observed across state and BCHC agencies.
• Ethnicity and race generally showed higher representation than age and gender.
• Few agency characteristics were significantly associated with representation index values, despite notable inter-agency variation.

Conclusions:

• Representativeness of public health agencies varies considerably.
• The substantial variation and limited correlations suggest opportunities for targeted improvement strategies.
• Findings can inform public health practitioners on assessing workforce composition and implementing diversity initiatives.