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"Public health services and systems research is a field of study that examines the organization, financing, and delivery of public health services within communities, and the impact of these services on public health.” (Mays, et al., 2009)

Who Is Involved?

The Wisconsin Public Health Practice-Based Research Network is a group of health department leaders and researchers who have organized to support and advance public health systems and services research driven by the needs and interests of health departments in Wisconsin and beyond. Membership is open to researchers and local and Tribal health departments in Wisconsin.

The Network was formed in December 2009 with two-year developmental funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Co-project directors are Susan Zahner, DrPH of the University of Wisconsin and Pat Guhleman, MS, Director of the Division of Public Health’s Office of Policy and Practice Alignment. 

Health Department Practice Partners

Dodge County, Greenfield, Lincoln County, Madison & Dane County, Milwaukee, Oak Creek, Oneida County, Oshkosh, Polk County, Rock County, Watertown, West Allis, and Wood County

Organizational Partners

Center for Urban Population Health in Milwaukee,  the Institute for Wisconsin’s Health Inc., the University of Wisconsin Institute for Clinical & Translational Research-Community Academic Partnership Program, the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, the Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards, and the Wisconsin Public Health Association

National Connections

The RWJF-supported public health practice-based research program is national and includes eleven states along with a growing number of affiliates. Glen Mays, MPH, PhD, F. Douglas Scutchfield Endowed Professor of Health Services and Systems Research at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, coordinates the national program. These national connections provide a learning community and a means of collaborating to improve the quality and scope of this growing field of research. Simply put, public health PBRNs expand the scientific knowledge needed for evidence-based decision making in public health.

How Does Wisconsin Benefit?

The Wisconsin Public Health Practice-Based Research Network serves as a springboard for:

1. New research projects that will help to establish more and better evidence for public health practice and systems

2. New partnerships between researchers and practitioners in health departments, universities, and other settings that result in high quality research

3. Leveraging funding for initiatives that improve practice and systems.

What Has Been Accomplished So Far?

After two years of development, our Network has:

1. Begun to serve as a focal point for academic, research and practice organizations around Wisconsin that have a shared interest in performance management, quality improvement, accreditation, systems, financing, health care reform and many other topics

2.  Incubated funded projects on:

• the impact of economic recession on health department funding
• a method for coding population health services by community nurses
• measurement of the quality of community health improvement plans and processes
• a study of service sharing among local and Tribal health departments

3.  Generated a draft inventory of public health systems and services research in Wisconsin and a list of research questions ripe for further exploration and action