50-1-405. (Temporary) Task force to prepare public health improvement plan. (1) The task force shall prepare a public health improvement plan that addresses the following subjects:
     (a) the ability or capacity of local boards to provide core functions and the standards by which that capacity must be measured, including:
     (i) a determination of public health strengths and weaknesses in communities and the state;
     (ii) a determination of which municipalities do not meet the capacity standards established by the task force;
     (iii) an analysis of the costs and benefits of adoption of capacity standards; and
     (iv) a plan for municipalities in order to achieve the capacity standards established by the task force;
     (b) strategies for improving state and local public health programs, including:
     (i) a determination of the needs of local boards, municipalities, and state agencies in order to achieve the capacity standards established by the task force in the most critical core functions;
     (ii) an examination of a strategy, such as establishment of geographic regions, for cost-effective administration and delivery of public health services;
     (iii) identification of methods to network local public health services to each other and to state public health services; and
     (iv) a review of laws, rules, ordinances, and policies pertaining to public health;
     (c) consideration of population-based public health activities, including:
     (i) assessment of health data;
     (ii) surveillance of chronic and infectious diseases;
     (iii) rapid response to outbreaks of communicable diseases;
     (iv) efforts to prevent and control communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome;
     (v) health education to promote healthy behaviors and to reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases, such as those linked to the use of tobacco, including poor nutrition, and physical activity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes;
     (vi) access to primary care in coordination with community-based health care organizations;
     (vii) programs to ensure that children are born as healthy as possible and that they can receive immunizations and adequate nutrition;
     (viii) efforts to prevent injury;
     (ix) programs to ensure the safety of drinking water and food supplies;
     (x) control of poisons;
     (xi) services for treatment of trauma; and
     (xii) other activities that have the potential to improve the health of the population or special populations and to reduce the need for or costs of health services;
     (d) a plan for the funding of other parts of the plan, including:
     (i) a recommended level for funding public health services, to be expressed in a percentage of total health services expenditures in the state or in a set per capita amount;
     (ii) methods to ensure that proposed funding does not supplant existing funding; and
     (iii) identification of federal and private funding opportunities;
     (e) identification of methods of integrating health status data into the health planning process and into local and regional planning;
     (f) recommendations for coordinating public health improvements with health care reform efforts and for continuance of the task force beyond 1996; and
     (g) a plan for implementing the recommendations contained in the plan in the years 1997 through 1999.
     (2) The task force shall send a copy of the public health improvement plan to the governor and to the legislature on or before September 30, 1996.
     (3) Local boards, municipalities, and state agencies shall cooperate with the task force in the preparation of the plan required by this section. (Terminates September 30, 1996--sec. 8, Ch. 323, L. 1995.)

     History: En. Sec. 5, Ch. 323, L. 1995.