Nevada Uses PHIG to Assess County Health Needs and Motivate Sustained Funding for Local & Tribal Public Health
Success StoriesPHIG funding enabled the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Public and
Behavioral Health to partner with the Nevada Association of Counties (NACO) to assess county-level
public health needs, which informed Nevada’s first-ever $15 million allocation to local public health.
Mitch DeValliere, Public Health Infrastructure Manager for the Division, shared how this assessment
and funding mechanism empowered counties to direct resources where they were most needed, from
conducting public outreach campaigns to using drones to prevent mosquito-borne illnesses. Initially a
one-time allocation, this funding may become part of the state budget. This will provide baseline
funding for each county, giving them consistent resources to hire staff and address local health
priorities in a sustainable way. Importantly, a portion of this funding—at least 10%—will be devoted
to assessing and supporting the health needs of Nevada’s tribal communities.
Transcript
How Have You Been Able to Use PHIG Funding?
We’ve been able to use PHIG funding in a variety of ways, but one of our outstanding examples is
our collaboration with the Nevada Association of Counties (NACO). Our partnership with NACO is
pretty important for our state. Through their work, they made outreach to our counties – which are
vast large areas and throughout Nevada – and allowed them to use the funding for an assessment
which gave us an idea of what they really needed in their jurisdictions. The state of Nevada, for the
first time, invested $15 million for the state to be utilized by the different counties to meet their own
public health needs. Some examples of that are, one county, for example, used the funding for social
media so that they could let their citizens know what services were available in their county.
Another county utilized the funding for their drone program to find different vectors, including
mosquitoes so that they could prevent mosquito-borne illnesses. That funding came from the state,
but the PHIG funding allowed us to utilize the services of NACO to find out exactly what the counties
needed.
What’s Next?
With this pilot program of state funding, it now looks like there’s an appetite to make that
permanent funding, which would be an increase in the amount of funding that was first utilized.
There would also be base funding for each county, so that they have the ability to hire staff and
increase their workforce to make the needs of their counties attainable. And with that funding, and
again, this is state funding facilitated by PHIG funding, we’re going to help the tribal communities
assess their needs and help them with their particular needs, because every tribal nation has
different health needs, just as the counties do. So that funding will be a big part of this new state
funding – at least 10% of the funding will be allocated to tribal communities.