Safeguarding Public Health: The Critical Role of the Prevention Fund

By Kevin McIntyre, Government Relations Manager, Trust for America’s Health

Currently, the United States spends $4.3 trillion on health, but only 4.4 percent of that money goes toward initiatives to keep people from getting sick in the first place. In this era of rising healthcare costs, investments in prevention are increasingly critical. The Prevention and Public Health Fund (Prevention Fund) is one of the nation’s most significant sustained investments in disease prevention.

Since its inception, states and territories have received over $12.3 billion from the Prevention Fund to address public health priorities, including immunizations, epidemiology, and laboratory capacity. The Prevention Fund also supports the Public Health and Health Services Block Grant which is used by states to address their most relevant health concerns and backfill underfunded priorities.

At this time, the Prevention Fund represents 10 percent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) budget. While the majority of its investments are at CDC, the Prevention Fund also supports programs at the Administration for Community Living (ACL) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for suicide prevention, Alzheimer’s disease prevention, falls prevention, and chronic disease self-management.

CDC’s Tips from Former Smokers campaign is one of the Prevention Fund’s more visible impacts. The campaign recently returned with new advertisements and features individuals sharing their stories about how cigarette smoking and smoking-related diseases have negatively impacted their lives. It is estimated that between 2012 – 2018, this campaign prevented over 129,000 early deaths and saved roughly $7.3 billion in smoking related health care costs.

The Prevention Fund also works to prevent chronic disease. All 50 states receive funding for heart disease and chronic disease prevention. Another notable success is the Diabetes Prevention Program, which saves an estimated $1,146 per participant.

Unfortunately, the Prevention Fund’s history has been limited by its use as a funding offset from both sides of the aisle. As first established by the Affordable Care Act, the Prevention Fund should have risen to $2 billion by FY 2015. After multiple cuts over the years, the Prevention Fund will not reach that number until FY 2030, a full fifteen years later than intended. In total, the Prevention Fund has been cut by $12.95 billion between FY 2013 – 2029.

Threats to the Prevention Fund are still active. Legislation recently passed the House, for example, that would be paid for with an additional cut of $1.19 billion from the Prevention Fund over FY 2024 – 2029. Over 100 organizations joined this recent sign-on letter to House Leadership opposing these cuts.

With U.S. life expectancy rates on a downward trend and health care costs rising, now is not the time to repurpose these important dollars. In this difficult environment for non-defense discretionary spending, it is important to provide adequate funding for all health priorities rather than pit them against each other with limited Labor-HHS allocations. Continued cuts will hamper the ability of CDC, as well as state and local health departments to keep communities safe and healthy, especially as the nation recovers from the pandemic.