Maryland and Virginia are among the top five states at winning federal public health grants, a task that’s becoming increasingly difficult in an era of budgetary belt tightening, but there is a great disparity between the two states’ health spending, according to a report obtained by The Examiner and set to be released today.
Maryland comes in third with $49.35 per person in funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Virginia came in fourth with $45.20 per capita, according to a report by Trust for America’s Health. The funding is used in a wide range of programs including infectious disease prevention, bioterrorism preparedness and environmental health.
“This tells us about the quality of the applications and how aggressive a state is in pursuing public health … it shows us where a state is placing its priorities,” Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust For America’s Health, said.
CDC funding is on a downward trend, he said, and winning the mostly competitive grants is only going to become more difficult. If Congress accepts President Bush’s recommendations to further cut the center’s funding, it will mean states may have to cut programs or rely more heavily on their own cash supplies, he said. That won’t likely be easy in any state, he said, but in comparison, Virginia seems to already have a lead over Maryland, outspending its neighbor to the north by nearly two to one. According to the report, Virginia spends $74.87 per person while Maryland spends $40.02 per person.
But that’s not necessarily a fair assessment. “It’s hard to judge state comparisons because of differences in funding structures,” Karen Black, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said. For example, Maryland requires a local government match for many of the local health programs the state helps to fund. In Virginia localities only pick up a portion of the tab.
Levi agreed with that assessment and said that’s why the report also calls on states to make their health spending data more transparent and their methods of funding standardized.
“It’s important to give the public a better sense of the comparison so they can make more informed [voting] decisions,” Levi said.
