Minnesota’s Public Health System
Minnesota’s Public Health System
Minnesota’s Public Health System
Minnesota's Public Health System
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CHS Administration Handbook
Last Revised: January 2014
History of Minnesota's Public Health System
Community Health Boards
Public Health System Strengths
Issues and Challenges Facing the Public Health System
"The public health system in Minnesota is a strong and dynamic partnership of governments, fully equipped to address the changing needs of the public's health."
— SCHSAC 2009-2013 Strategic Plan
Minnesota's public health system can best be described as a state and local partnership. It was created with the passage of the
Community Health Services Act (Minn. Stat. § 145A) in 1976, which was subsequently revised in 1987 and 2003. Now called the
Local Public Health Act, the legislation delineates the responsibilities of the state (MDH) and city and county governments in
the planning, development, funding, and delivery of public health services.
This partnership, known as the Community Health Services (CHS) system, enables state and local governments to combine
resources to serve public health needs in an efficient, cost-effective way. It is fundamental to the success of Minnesota's public
health system because it is the infrastructure for nearly all public health efforts in Minnesota. The system is structured to be
flexible so it can meet the different needs of communities around the state and promote direct and timely communications
between state and local health departments. The CHS system relies on shared goals and a desire to work together to improve
the lives of all Minnesotans. This partnership is the basis of Minnesota's public health system—one entity cannot function
without the other.
History of Minnesota's Public Health System
The public health responsibilities of both local and state governments in Minnesota date back to the mid-1800s, when towns and
cities were authorized to enact regulations for controlling infectious disease. They formed township boards of health, and all early
public health work was done at the local level. There was no central
or organized public health body in the state.
In 1872, a State Board of Health was established in Red Wing. Recognizing that local communities often are more aware of local
threats to health than the state, and are better suited to address
specific issues, the State Board of Health encouraged communities
to create local boards of health in the 1900s.
The responsibilities of these local boards were three-fold:
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To assess the health of their community, including report- Minnesota’s first public health laboratory in Red Wing,
Minnesota (c. 1890).
ing live births and causes of death and disease;
To develop policies to limit the spread of communicable
disease; and
To assure sanitary conditions conducive to a healthy community.
State field offices opened to support the local boards of health in the 1930s. Each was staffed with a medical director, an engineer, and a public health nurse. In the mid-1940s, legislation gave LHDs updated authority including responsibility in the areas
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Minnesota Department of Health Office of Performance Improvement
www.health.state.mn.us/divs/opi/
Minnesota’s Public Health System
Minnesota’s Public Health System
CHS Administration Handbook
of maternal and child health, health education, disease prevention, and restaurant inspections. In addition, the Legislature provided small amounts of state aid for the cost of providing local public health nursing services. Such services typically included
maternity services, health supervision of infants and children, communicable disease control with immunizations for diphtheria/tetanus and smallpox, and some bedside nursing. Other early activities of the state and local health boards focused on four
areas—sewage management, restaurant and food inspections, milk quality, and meat inspections. In the late 1960s and early
1970s, additional programs were created as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" reform package.
Prior to 1977, over 2,100 local boards of health existed to serve Minnesota's communities. The 1976 Community Health Services Act (now the Local Public Health Act, or Minn. Stat. § 145A) allowed boards of health to join together and work as CHBs,
to serve a larger population and geographic area. The legislation aimed to:
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Overcome confusion over roles and authorities
Make the public health system more comprehensive
Make CHBs eligible for state subsidy
Make communication /collaboration easier across the system
Minnesota’s system of local boards of health prior
to the 1976 Community Health Services Act.
Community health boards in Minnesota as of January 2013.
The Local Public Health Act outlines the shared public health responsibilities of the state and local governments in Minnesota
and establishes accountability for funding on statewide initiatives, provides guidelines for assessment and planning, requires
documented progress toward the achievement of statewide goals, and assigns oversight of the statewide system to the commissioner of health.
Community Health Boards
The community health board (CHB) is the legal governing authority for local public health in Minnesota, and CHBs work with
MDH in partnership to prevent diseases, protect against environmental hazards, promote healthy behaviors and healthy communities, respond to disasters, ensure access to health services, and assure an adequate local public health infrastructure.
CHBs have statutory responsibility under the Local Public Health Act and must address and implement the essential local public health activities. Additionally, CHBs must assure that:
www.health.state.mn.us/divs/opi/
Minnesota Department of Health Office of Performance Improvement
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Minnesota’s Public Health System
Minnesota’s Public Health System
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CHS Administration Handbook
A community health assessment and plan are completed on a regular cycle
Community health needs are prioritized in a manner that involves community participation
Needed public health services are developed and implemented
The Local Public Health Act requires each CHB to serve a population of at least 30,000
 Related Chapters:
people. If a single county doesn't meet the population requirement, it can form a CHB
CHS Administrators
with one or more neighboring counties. If a CHB serves three or more contiguous
CHS Medical Consultants
counties, the minimum population requirement does not apply. The number of CHBs
in the system has varied over time and is subject to change; MDH maintains a map of
current CHBs and contact information for CHBs/local departments online. CHBs in Minnesota take a number of forms: SingleCounty, Multi-County, Statutory (City-Based), and Human Services Board.
CHBs are required to have a CHS administrator and a medical consultant, and may appoint an advisory committee. Members
of the CHB are either elected themselves or appointed by elected officials. Due to local control and local investment of resources, the membership, composition, and business practices of CHBs vary throughout the state. This flexibility is a great
strength of the state's public health system; it helps ensure public health activities are aligned with community need.
Organizational and Governance Changes
Over the past decade, many counties and CHBs have made changes to their public health organizational and governance
structures, and more changes are being considered as local elected officials look for ways to address significant budget concerns, create efficiencies, and anticipate the retirements of public health leaders. Between May 2009 and May 2010, 28 percent
of county boards and 28 percent of CHBs considered, proposed, or decided to change their organizational or governance
structure. Some top public health officials expressed satisfaction with current structures, whereas others identified limitations
with current structures or concerns about the motivation for changing structures.
Public Health System Strengths
A Partnership of Governments
Minnesota's public health system functions as a partnership between state and local governments, and is designed to ensure
that the public's health and safety are protected statewide while providing local governments with the flexibility needed to
identify and address local needs. Both levels of government have statutory authorities and responsibilities. Minnesota's public
health statute is widely regarded as ground-breaking, and other states have modeled parts of their own public health statutes
on Minnesota's.
Complementary Roles that Build on Strengths
The Minnesota Department of Health and CHBs play complementary roles in protecting and improving health, within a system
of shared responsibility. The coordinated partnership between the state and local levels of government in Minnesota is an efficient way to make the best use of public health resources. Because public health in Minnesota is locally delivered, in many cases certain functions are more efficiently handled by one of the partners.
The Minnesota Department of Health provides specialized scientific, technical, and program expertise, and serves the entire
state. It also provides data that CHBs and local health departments need to carry out their work, and is responsible for overall
public health policy development. MDH channels funding to the local public health system, and is accountable to the Legislature and the federal government for those funds. Categorical grant programs have reporting mechanisms in place to collect
necessary information. In addition, CHBs report each year into an electronic reporting system to demonstrate accountability
with Local Public Health Act performance measures developed by the SCHSAC Performance Improvement Steering Committee.
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Minnesota Department of Health Office of Performance Improvement
www.health.state.mn.us/divs/opi/
Minnesota’s Public Health System
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CHS Administration Handbook
CHB strengths include deep connections within communities; an understanding of local conditions, needs, and re-sources; and
trained staff to carry out public health activities. A number of coalitions exist between CHBs, counties, and other organizations,
which capitalize on each agency's strength to deliver appropriate services.
State Community Health Services Advisory Committee
The State Community Health Services Advisory Committee (SCHSAC) is a statutory advisory body made up of one representative from each of the state's CHBs; it meets quarterly with the commissioner of health and key MDH managers to develop
shared goals, clarify roles, and develop agreement on how to address emerging public health issues.
SCHSAC provides a forum for the state and CHBs to regularly, systematically, and intentionally exchange information, and collaboratively address key public health issues. Its work is primarily conducted through the quarterly meetings, conferences,
workgroups, and distance learning; all SCHSAC activity is based in its annual work plan. SCHSAC members are encouraged to
regularly solicit information from and disseminate information to members of their CHBs at local and regional meetings.
Having been established with the original CHS Act in 1976, SCHSAC remains a vital and important body as it moves into its
fourth decade.
SCHSAC was established to "advise, consult with, and make recommendations to the
commissioner on the development, maintenance, funding, and evaluation of community
health services." — Community Health Services Act, 1976
Minnesota Dept. of Health Resources and Support
MDH public health nurse consultants, epidemiologists and preparedness coordinators are deployed across the state, and provide technical assistance and support to CHBs within their assigned geographic regions.
Those state employees live and work in the regions they serve (at the seven MDH district offices, for example), understand local context, and provide expertise that connects MDH with CHBs. These MDH employees provide service and expertise which is
not otherwise practical or cost-effective for an individual CHB or local health department to maintain. Some of these services
include epidemiologic consultation and investigations, emergency preparedness planning and exercises, environmental health,
maternal and child health, and public health nursing consultation, as well as technical assistance with local public health assessment and planning. In addition to this, centrally located MDH staff provide facilitate strategic planning and follow-up, and
develop tools, templates, guidelines, websites and other resources.
Local Governments Working Across Jurisdictional Boundaries
Since the existing state public health system was created in 1976, local governments have been granted the authority to work
across jurisdictional boundaries to address public health issues, by forming multi-county CHBs. Today, almost two-thirds of
Minnesota counties have partnered to create larger, multi-county CHBs—public health jurisdictions that have the potential to
extend scarce resources and allow for economies of scale. Many other regional, multi-county, or city-based shared service arrangements are in place to address specific public health issues in a cost-effective and efficient way.
Dedicated Public Health Funding
Funding for local public health is comprised of a mix of local, state, and federal funds, as well as fees and reimbursements. A
base of stable, non-categorical state funding is critical to public health in Minnesota. It assures that all areas of the state have a
CHB that can respond to a diverse array of public health issues. Approximately $20 million in flexible state funding (as of 2012)
supports public health in communities around the state. This flexible funding can be used to fulfill public health responsibilities
and support local priorities identified during community assessments. Some examples:
www.health.state.mn.us/divs/opi/
Minnesota Department of Health Office of Performance Improvement
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Minnesota’s Public Health System
Minnesota’s Public Health System
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Directly observed therapy for TB
Investigating public health nuisances
Promoting healthy communities
Addressing health care service gaps/barriers
CHS Administration Handbook
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Improving cultural competency among service providers
Preparing for emergencies
Responding to foodborne outbreaks
Providing vaccinations
Issues and Challenges Facing the Public Health System
Despite Minnesota's reputation for a strong and effective public health system and its proven record in promoting population
health, the state faces a number of challenges. In an era of funding constraints, public health departments are faced with increased
responsibility for emerging health threats while still maintaining other fundamental health protection and promotion activities.
Minnesota's public health system is facing many challenges, and working actively to address them. In recent discussions,
SCHSAC members, CHS administrators, and public health leaders identified the following issues and challenges as faced by
their departments:
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An aging public health workforce, which leads to leadership turnover
Changing community demographics, including declining populations in many rural counties
Organizational changes and/or reorganizations of many CHBs (e.g., creating health and human service agencies by
merging public health departments with social services departments)
Capacity and resource disparities between a number of small and large jurisdictions
Reliance on multiple, categorical funding streams with time-consuming administrative requirements and unpredictable funding.
Large-scale budgetary pressures, which require new strategies to preserve the public health protection and prevention currently enjoyed by state residents
SCHSAC has advocated for meeting these challenges head-on, proactively finding opportunity in challenges, and "raising the
bar" for public health in Minnesota. The public health system requires sustained action to enhance its agility and ensure its
future success, and can count on the established state-local partnership to help it weather financial and other constraints.
As one SCHSAC member recently said, "We are setting a course for the future based on the strong foundation we've built."
Key Resources
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Local Public Health Act (Minn. Stat. § 145A)
Local Public Health Act: Related Statutes
Find a Local Health Department or Community Health Board
Current Community Health Board Map
Local Public Health Assessment and Planning
SCHSAC (State Community Health Services Advisory Committee)
Minnesota Local Public Health Association
Healthy People 2020
A Call to Action: Advancing Health for All through Social and Economic Change (PDF: 3.29MB / 96 pages) – Minnesota
Health Improvement Partnership Social Conditions and Health Action Team
Operational Definition of a Functional Local Health Department – National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
Minnesota Department of Health Office of Performance Improvement
www.health.state.mn.us/divs/opi/