Local Indiana County Health Departments Getting A Lot of New Cash

In the 2023 General Assembly Legislative session, a new bill was passed to flood local county health departments with new cash so counties can “determine the health needs of their communities and implement evidence-based programs focused on prevention” according the Indiana Department of Health website.  The program, Health First Indiana, will disperse $75 million in the fiscal year 2024 and $150 million in fiscal year 2025.

A large portion of “prevention” at the local public health department is vaccination.  Now might be a good time to start attending, or at the very least read the transcripts, of your local county health department meetings.  Watch where the funds go.

Here’s what you need to know about the new Health First Indiana program:

• These six counties DID NOT opt to receive the new funding: Crawford, Fountain, Harrison, Johnson, Wells, and Whitley
• Counties are required to submit an annual report to the Indiana Department of Health on how the money was spent
• Counties can vote to withdraw their opt-in in the future
• Those counties that opted out can vote to opt-in for future fiscal years
• 78% of the new funding is going towards prevention and health outcomes
• 68% of participating counties are partnering with community agencies (mobile clinics, hospitals, YMCA’s, etc.)
• KPI – you need to know this term – it stands for “Key Performance Indicators” and is the acronym that will be used frequently in discussion on whether or not these programs are successful (you can learn about what those KPI’s are here)
• The state has created the Indiana County Health Scorecard to track seven health metrics

Do you want to know how much your county health department is receiving specifically? Use the health funding interactive map.

Please start getting involved in your local community by attending county commissioner and/or health department board meetings.