Measuring Health Performance in the Public Sector: A Summary of Two Reports

The Panel on Performance Measures and Data for Public Health Performance Partnership Grants was established at the request of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Its charge is to examine the state of the art in performance measurement for public health and to recommend measures that could be used to monitor the Performance Partnership Grant agreements to be negotiated between each state and the federal government. The panel was asked to consider performance measures in ten areas, which are clearly a subset of the full range of traditional public health concerns: chronic diseases; sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, and tuberculosis; mental health; immunization; substance abuse; and three areas of prevention of special interest to DHHS-sexual assault, disabilities, and emergency medical services. This report focuses on measures that states and the federal government can use over the next 3 to 5 years to negotiate agreements and monitor performance in these areas. A later report will examine additional measures that might be developed from new research findings on program effectiveness or as improvements are made to state and federal surveys and data systems.