Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) led Senators Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) in a letter urging the Senate to include an additional $20 million in funding for the Regional Public Health Training Centers (PHTC) program in any forthcoming coronavirus legislation. The PHTC Programs support public health education in Nevada and across the country.
“These critical (PHTC) programs provide specialized training and technical assistance to public health students and professionals, helping to meet the workforce needs of state and local public health agencies,” wrote the Senators. “Looking ahead, a robust pipeline of qualified public health workers will be critical to states’ responses to the next phase of the coronavirus outbreak…Additional resources delivered to PHTCs would have an exponential impact on the capacity of local public health departments to fulfill their missions by providing training and human resources that they can use to scale up operations in response to the pandemic.”
BACKGROUND:
Increased funding for the Regional Public Health Training Center Program would help schools of public health, including the University of Nevada, Reno’s School of Community Health Sciences, scale up their partnerships with local public health agencies and maintain the pipeline of public health workers through the pandemic.
Full text of the letter can be found here.
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