Correlation between State Public Health Systems Performance and Central State Public Health Agency Characteristics

This study examines the relationship between state public health system performance in assuring each of the 10 EPHS and total performance, as measured by Version 1.0 of the NPHPSP State Public Health System Performance Assessment instrument, and various state public health agency characteristics contained in the NPHPSP instrument and the 2005 ASTHO Salary and Agency Infrastructure survey. Data examined comes from the sixteen states that have state health agencies that have filled out both Version 1.0 of the NPHPSP state assessment instrument and the 2005 ASTHO survey. Bivariate analysis, Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, ANOVA and independent t- tests are used, when appropriate, to determine the relationship between performance and the variables examined. The results of our analysis suggest that certain state health agency characteristics, including those related to the characteristics of the chief health officer in the state, are positively associated with state public health system performance in assuring some of the 10 EPHS, as measured by the NPHPSP state instrument. Initial comparisons of the response to the ASTHO survey and the NPHPSP demographic data suggests that there may be much concordance between the two surveys. The primary weakness of our analysis is the relatively small number of agencies examined, and the cross sectional nature of the data examined. The associations between certain state health agency characteristics and performance in assuring certain EPHS suggests that agencies that have a deficiency in these EPHS may wish to examine the agency characteristics that are positively associated with these EPHS, and seek to effect change in performance through manipulating these characteristics.