Letter to the Hon. Richard Shelby, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and to the Hon. Patrick Leahy, Vice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee - Cortez Masto, Colleagues Call for Additional Funding for Public Health Education

Letter

Dear Chairman Shelby and Vice Chairman Leahy:
Thank you for your Committee's work to date in appropriating much-needed resources to
support our nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding made available under
each piece of coronavirus-related legislation has been essential to the work conducted by
agencies and organizations on the front lines of the outbreak.
As states begin to prepare for the next phase of this pandemic, we ask that you increase support
for public health training programs to protect the pipeline of qualified health workers who will
be essential to monitoring this virus in the months and years to come. Specifically we ask that
you provide an additional $20 million in funding to support Regional Public Health Training
Center (PHTC) Programs in any forthcoming legislation to address the coronavirus pandemic.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) currently funds ten PHTCs across
the country. These critical programs provide specialized training and technical assistance to
public health students and professionals, helping to meet the workforce needs of state and local
public health agencies.
Looking ahead, a robust pipeline of qualified public health workers will be critical to states'
responses to the next phase of the coronavirus outbreak. States must develop and administer
COVID-19 testing programs to monitor new cases, and establish contact tracing strategies to
mitigate community spread of the virus. The need for qualified professionals supported by expert
technical assistance will only continue to grow as states lift stay-at-home orders and businesses
begin to reopen. Additional resources delivered to PHTCs would have an exponential impact on
the capacity of local public health departments to fulfill their missions by providing training and
human resources that they can use to scale up operations in response to the pandemic.
We look forward to working with you to support the efforts of our constituent public health
agencies who are working tirelessly to stem the spread of this virus and enable our communities
to return to regular order. Thank you for your consideration of this request.