In this commentary, Paul Kuehnert and Kaye Bender, past presidents and CEOs during PHAB’s initial development and growth, describe the evolution of national public health accreditation and its supporting evidence base.

Research teams at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Alabama used qualitative interviews with four small local and Tribal health departments as they worked towards achieving reaccreditation or Pathways Recognition. Their collection of peer-reviewed articles and case studies provides a range of insight on the impact of accreditation, as well as guidance for other health departments on how to implement or accelerate the process.

A research team at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio combined qualitative and quantitative data to tell the story of public health accreditation in Ohio, which has a national public health accreditation mandate. The researchers described how accreditation was implemented in Ohio and what we can learn from Ohio’s experience to maximize the impact of public health accreditation. The study was also highlighted in a PHAB Story of Impact on Ohio.

A research team at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health examined the relationship between local health department accreditation and COVID-19 outcomes. They found that after adjusting for social vulnerability, public policy measures, and state public health governance structures, communities with an accredited local health department had a higher percent of adults with full COVID-19 vaccine coverage and a lower COVID-19 death rate, compared to communities where the local public health department was not accredited.