Massachusetts Public Health Association
Action for Equity in Health
Contact Chairs of the Public Health Committee in Support of the Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund (PWTF) and State Action for Public Health Excellence (SAPHE) Program

 

Two MPHA priority bills, the Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund (PWTF) Act (S1293/H2012)  and the State Action for Public Health Excellence (SAPHE) Act (S1294/H1935 are being heard before the Joint Committee on Public Health today, Tuesday, May 7th, at 1pm. 

Please join us in taking action for these two important programs!  C ontact the committee chairs this week to ask for their support.
  • Please email the Public Health Committee chairs by copying and pasting the email below. Feel free to personalize or write your own text.
  • For greater impact, copy your Representative and Senator on your emailEmails for Reps are here, and emails for Senators are here. If you don't know who your Rep and Senator are, you can look them up here.
Thank you for taking action for health equity! Please let us know you took action by emailing Maddie Ribble at: mribble@mapublichealth.org
EMAIL TO PUBLIC HEALTH COMMITTEE CHAIRS IN  SUPPORT OF PWTF & SAPHE

To:
Jo.Comerford@masenate.gov,  John.Mahoney@mahouse.gov
 
Cc:
[Insert the email addresses for your Rep and Senator]
 
Subject:
Support for Senate Bills 1293/1294 and House Bills 2012/1935 - Prevention & Wellness Trust Fund and State Action for Public Health Excellence (SAPHE) Program
 
Dear Chairwoman Comerford and Chairman Mahoney:
 
Please support the Prevention & Wellness Trust Fund (PWTF) and State Action for Public Health Excellence (SAPHE) Program! 

PWTF focuses on preventing illness and injury before people are sick, rather than spending money on "sick care" after people are already ill. We know that people's health is influenced primarily by the conditions where they live, work, and play. Yet, we spend nearly $60 billion on health care in Massachusetts primarily to treat people after they're sick. PWTF is the first large scale initiative that invests in evidence-based community strategies to prevent illness and reduce health inequities. Between 2014-18, PWTF funded successful clinical-community partnerships that helped to keep residents healthy and bend the health care cost curve. Now we must pass legislation to continue this successful model. 

SAPHE will provide essential training to the local public health workforce and support sharing of services across municipalities to increase capacity. Massachusetts is an outlier in how it approaches local public health, with no direct state funding and 351 municipal boards of health. As a result , there is wide variation across towns in the degree of protections provided, the level of health funding per capita, and the level of training staff receive. Local health departments are responsible for a vast suite of protections that we all rely on to stay safe and healthy, from food safety in restaurants, safe facilities at public pools and children's camps, to communicable disease control and enforcement of tobacco regulations. We must strengthen our system to ensure equitable protections for all residents of the Commonwealth.  

Sincerely,
[Your name and organizational affiliation]
[Contact info]
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