Cobb & Douglas Public Health was honored with the Model Practice Award at the 2019 Annual Conference of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). The award celebrates local health departments for developing programs that demonstrate exemplary and replicable best practices in response to a critical local public health need. Growing a 501c3 Organization to Diversity Public Health Funding was one of 53 local health department programs to receive NACCHO’s prestigious Model Practice Award.
Core funding for disease prevention and health promotion programs has declined by around $580 million federally and remained flat since 2010 (Trust for America’s Health, April 2017). Cobb & Douglas Public Health (CDPH) chose to address declining support proactively by establishing a Development Office to focus on diversifying, growing, and sustaining funding from new, non-traditional sources. The Development Office relaunched the Cobb Health Futures Foundation and the Douglas Health Futures Foundation in 2011 to help raise private dollars to fund programs at risk due to reduced funding. Since 2012, the Office has led efforts to raise over $4.9 million in new, nontraditional funds.
Since 2003, NACCHO’s Model Practice Awards have honored programs, resources, and tools that demonstrate how local health departments and their community partners can effectively collaborate to address local public health challenges. Each innovative project receiving the Model Practice Award was peer-reviewed and selected from a competitive group of over 100 applicants.
“Today we honor Cobb & Douglas Public Health for the exceptional program they have developed to protect their community, as well as promote the concept of spread for the benefit of other communities. Inventive programs like theirs advance our profession by promoting science and evidence-informed work and we are very pleased to recognize their efforts with this Model Practice Award,” said NACCHO Chief Executive Officer Lori Tremmel Freeman, MBA.
Growing a 501c3 Organization to Diversity Public Health Funding is now part of an online, searchable database of successful public health practices in areas that range from immunization and maternal and child health, to infectious diseases and emergency preparedness. The NACCHO Model Practice database allows local health departments, public health partners, and other important stakeholders to learn about the good work being done by local health departments across the country. The database also provides users an opportunity to learn from best practices and what resources are needed to implement comparable programs in other jurisdictions that produce results.
Read more about these award-winning programs at https://application.naccho.org/Public/Applications/Search .
About Cobb & Douglas Public Health
Cobb & Douglas Public Health, along with the Georgia Department of Public Health, has been committed to the mission of “Healthier Lives. Healthier Community.” since 1920. We are dedicated to improving our residents’ quality of life by tracking and preventing the spread of disease, promoting health and safety, providing exceptional medical services, and ensuring that our community is prepared for public health emergencies. For more information, visit www.cobbanddouglaspublichealth.org.
About the National Association of County and City Health Officials
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) represents the nation’s 2,800 local governmental health departments. These cities, counties, metropolitan, district and tribal departments work every day to protect and promote health and well-being for all people in their communities.