Primary Care and Public Health – ‘We Need to Talk to Each Other’

Patients and the nation will benefit when primary care and public health have more support – including from each other. The Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Act plans to bolster primary care by supporting community health centers and the workforce, including $300 million to add 2,000 primary care doctors by 2032.

But helping one sector of health care could hurt another one. The bill summary states it would reduce the Prevention and Public Health Fund by $980 million. That could be a setback for public health across the country, said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association. Benjamin spoke to Medical Economics about the current dynamic between primary care and public health – read it here.