Forming community partnerships in advance of health emergencies can pay off.
Photo by Skynesher, courtesy iStockphoto
Strong partnerships between local public health leaders and elected officials are critical to protecting community health, but they do not happen automatically.
A new roadmap, “Good Health Is Good Governance,” offers strategies for building such relationships and advancing public health priorities. Developed by a bipartisan commission convened by the de Beaumont Foundation, the guide provides recommendations for establishing partnerships, setting up shared priorities and strengthening community preparedness.
The guide, which was released in July, comes as communities continue to apply lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, which underscored the importance of collaboration across local governments to prepare for emergencies, maintain essential infrastructure and improve health outcomes.
“As we're seeing polarization increase throughout our discourse around public health and throughout the nation, we can't afford to see (elected officials) as our enemies,” Brian Castrucci, DrPH, MA, told The Nation's Health. “They are the facilitators of the policies that we need to ensure that the public can be as healthy as it possibly can be.”
Two topics — strengthening localized data and ensuring reliable access to personal protective equipment for workers — were identified by the commission as popular across diverse communities and political affiliations.
The roadmap includes discussion prompts for starting partnerships on those and other topics of mutual agreement and recommendations for making measurable progress that strengthens public health operations.
Public health leaders can use the roadmap to build relationships with elected officials, helping position public health as a partner rather than an adversary, Castrucci said.
“There should be no partisan divide over clean water and clean air,” former Ohio Gov. John Kasich said in a news release. “Strong communities start with strong partnerships, and this roadmap is about building a united effort to protect health and save lives.”
Kasich, former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, former U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and other leaders served on the bipartisan commission that developed the roadmap. Convened in 2025, the National Commission on Local Public Health Leadership was tasked with creating a unified, actionable vision for local public health policy.
Robust partnerships between public health leaders and elected officials will be critical when communities face the next public health emergency.
“There's much more we have in common than we disagree on,” Castrucci said. “We agree on the outcome...better health for all. The disagreements at times come with the tactics, but that's where we can have discussion and can really find a path forward.”
For more information on the “Good Health Is Good Governance” roadmap, visit https://debeaumont.org.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
