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Impacting Public Health: PHIG Success Stories

PHIG Success Stories

See firsthand stories of impact from the Public Health Infrastructure Grant. From small wins to transformative changes, these PHIG Success Stories give us a glimpse into how PHIG fosters widespread innovation in public health systems and structures.

  • PHIG Supports Public Health Workforce Recruitment in Nashville and Davidson County

    PHIG funding has improved the Metro Public Health Department of Nashville and Davidson County’s (MPHD) ability to recruit a strong public health workforce. It has allowed MPHD to hire a second recruiter, streamlining outreach and sourcing while improving application response times. This change has brought a measurable decrease in the time-to-hire metric and has allowed MPHD to expand recruitment outreach, including posting on the ASTHO Public Health Careers page. Additionally, PHIG funds have allowed MPHD to invest in targeted advertising to recruit for hard-to-fill positions, such as a Veterinarian for the Metro Animal Care and Control facility.

    Close up of hands working at a laptop with graphic design overlay of web of icons of professionals.

  • Marion County Uses PHIG to Launch First Paid Internship Program

    With PHIG funds, the Marion County Public Health Department (MCPHD) launched its first paid internship program in spring 2024. MCPHD initially partnered with Indiana University’s Fairbanks School of Public Health and has grown to include more interns and schools. In the summer of 2024, MCPHD hired an Internship Coordinator to streamline internship processes and support the goal of creating a pipeline for students to pursue public health careers. This work included developing a process for paying interns (no previous system was in place) and ensuring a consistent process for all interns, whether paid or unpaid. As a direct example of the program’s community impact, a PHIG-funded intern created a bilingual (English and Spanish) electronic application form for MCPHD’s Diaper Den project, increasing its capacity to process diaper requests from 150 to about 600 per month. The intern also created an electronic tracking form that captured information such as the number of diapers distributed each month by size.

    Intern and a staff member of Marion County working at the Diaper Den project.

  • NYC Modernization Centers Data Capabilities with PHIG Support

    The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Center for Population Health Data Science (CPHDS) is strengthening its data capabilities in epidemiology, public health surveillance, and informatics and investing in building data engineering, data science, and product management skills. PHIG funding enabled CPHDS to create data engineering and data product management functions to maximize the value and usefulness of data to all internal and external public health data consumers and ensure alignment between technical and organizational priorities. With its workforce in place, CPHDS has designed its cloud-based infrastructure, built the foundation for it, begun securing it to ingest public health data, and delivered data pipelining tools and a development environment to a central team of engineers and analysts. This approach increases the agency’s long-term self-reliance and ownership of the modernized data systems currently being built.

    Cloud outline with abstract lines and data points across the image which is overlaid on a city landscape.

  • Philadelphia DPH Uses Exit Interviews to Guide Workforce Retention Strategies

    For the first time, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) can capture detailed information on both contract and civil service employees who leave the department, giving them the data they need to understand how to best support their workforce and reduce the rate of separations. This work began in 2024 when PDPH submitted a PHIG technical assistance request to explore using exit interviews. In response to the request, Public Health Management Corporation—NNPHI's PHIG Hub for Regions 2 and 3—guided the unit in collecting in-depth information about why employees were leaving the department. While developing the exit interview questionnaire and process, PDPH received advice and resources on best practices from ASTHO and another PHIG recipient's health department. The department began conducting exit interviews in the winter of 2024 and plans to use the findings to inform and improve retention strategies.

    A woman shakes hands with the person across the desk in a professional interview setting.

  • How PHIG Is Strengthening Infrastructure and Communications in Nashville and Davidson County

    PHIG funding is helping modernize the Metro Public Health Department of Nashville and Davidson County’s (MPHD) main conference rooms at the Lentz Public Health Center, where the infrastructure and equipment—now 14 years old—have exceeded their expected service life. The upgrades will include new teleconferencing capabilities and improvements to support ADA compliance, ensuring these spaces are more accessible and functional. Beyond the conference rooms, PHIG is also supporting investments in digital touch-driven, multi-language display kiosks in MPHD facilities to meet the growing demand for linguistic capability and educate the public about MPHD’s services.

    Staff sitting in conference room in the Lentz Public Health Center.

  • PHIG Supports Tulsa Health Department in Salary Review and Retention Efforts

    In January 2024, the Tulsa Health Department (THD) utilized PHIG funds to revise its salary structure and job grading system, leading to salary adjustments for 150 of 340 employees. The evaluation highlighted the need to address wages for entry-level positions, such as groundskeepers and clerks, which require a high school diploma. THD also introduced a salary modification system to better recognize experience and education, ensuring that new hires with five or more years of experience or advanced education beyond the job’s requirements receive higher starting pay. These changes have already shown promising results. Preliminary data indicates an increase in applications for open positions and improved retention rates compared to the same period in 2023.

    Hands of worker shown using a calculator and taking notes.
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