PH WINS is a partnership between the de Beaumont Foundation and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). It is supported by the Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC), the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the Region V Public Health Training Center, and the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. 

The PH WINS team includes Moriah Gendelman, Senior Research Associate at the de Beaumont Foundation, and Kay Schaffer, Research Associate at the de Beaumont Foundation. 

PH WINS participants include state health agencies, big city agencies, and local health departments with a staff size of at least 25 and serve a population of at least 25,000. New to 2021 is the PH WINS for All pilot, a partnership with the Region V and Region X public health training centers to recruit all local health departments in those regions regardless of size. 

PH WINS 2021 aims to be inclusive of the effect of COVID-19 and its response on the workforce, but not exclusively about it. The survey includes questions to track the movement of the workforce when responding to COVID-19 and understand the mental health effects of the pandemic on the workforce. Additionally, questions have been included that respond to the country’s renewed focus on racism as a public health crisis and other health equity topics. 

PH WINS will launch on Monday, September 13, 2021. 

PH WINS is an electronic survey administered by the de Beaumont Foundation and each respondent will receive a unique link. Due to the volume of participating agencies, there are no exceptions to this. 

When PH WINS launches, we will communicate that it will be closing in the middle of October 2021. However, we will likely be extending the deadline through the end of 2021 to ensure that all participating health departments achieve their minimum required response rate. 

The survey will take 20-25 minutes to complete. 

An agreement by the health official is required for participation in PH WINS 2021. Participating agencies are agreeing to the following:

• Providing a complete, current staff list with, at minimum, the names, email addresses, and division or bureau, if applicable, of all employees.
• Designating a representative to serve as the Workforce Champion, a backup contact for the Workforce Champion, and an IT contact to assist with fielding the survey.
• Promoting staff participation within their agency using materials provided by the de Beaumont Foundation before the launch and through the closure of the survey.

Local health departments in Region V and Region X with less than 25 staff members are eligible to participate in PH WINS 2021 for the first time! We take the anonymity and confidentiality of respondents very seriously. For that reason, health departments with less than 25 staff members will be grouped with other departments with less than 25 staff members to form department coalitions. You will receive a combined agency report. Please contact your regional public health training center at [email protected] (Region 5) or [email protected] (Region 10) to discuss your department coalition. 

The slides from the Workforce Champion webinars can be found here. You should have also received a follow-up email with the slides, a link to submit the contact information for your Backup Workforce Champion and IT contact, a Workforce Champion Implementation Kit, a customized Zoom background, and an email badge to help you promote PH WINS in your organization.  

July 23rd: Complete this form to provide us with the contact information for your Backup Workforce Champion and IT contact, as well as your organizational chart (if this is applicable to you, see question below about staff lists). 

August 13th: Deadline to submit your staff list to [email protected]. If you are a local health department located in Region 5 or Region 10, please submit your staff list to your regional public health training center at [email protected] (Region 5) or [email protected] (Region 10). 

August 27th: Deadline to complete allow listing, a process that ensures the survey invitation emails will not get caught in spam. The de Beaumont Foundation will be emailing your IT contacts in early August. While the process is relatively easy, it often takes a few back and forth emails.  

September 13th: PH WINS launches! 

Please complete this form with the contact information for your Backup Workforce Champion and IT contact and organizational chart. See the question below about staff lists to see if you need to submit an organizational chart. 

Allow listing is a process that ensures the survey invitation email does not get caught in spam filters. The de Beaumont Foundation will be emailing your IT contacts in early August. While the process is relatively easy, it often takes a few back and forth emails.  

All public health agency staff, local officers (if you are a centralized state), contractors, and federal employees working for your agency should be included on your staff list. This includes staff who were hired in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey includes questions that will allow us to determine who is a permanent employee, temporary employee, contractor, federal detailee, intern, etc.

Staff lists should be provided in an excel spreadsheet and include employees’ first name, last name, and email address in separate columns. Providing an employee’s division, position and/or title can also be helpful. If your agency includes divisions beyond public health and you would like them to participate, you MUST provide the division/unit of each staff member. All staff members must still be under the purview of the health official.

A staff list template can be accessed here.

If your agency or department hires new employees after you have submitted your staff list, please email an updated staff list to [email protected] as soon as possible. If you know that your agency will be hiring a significant number of new staff after the August 13th deadline, please email [email protected] so that the PH WINS team can plan accordingly. 

Workforce Champions can use the Workforce Champion Implementation Kit for email templates for PH WINS promotion and recruitment, important dates, and information on how PH WINS data can be used to strengthen your workforce. 

Yes, as part of our response tracking process, Workforce Champions will receive weekly or bi-weekly updates on how many employees in your agency or department have completed the survey.

Results from PH WINS will be available in Spring/Early Summer 2022. 

Yes! Participating agencies are our priority and will receive agency-specific reports prior to the release of any national data. Agencies will receive two types of reports.

1. Static agency reports in the form of a PDF that will provide a high-level overview of key data points.
2. Password-protected agency data visualization dashboards that will allow you to dive a little deeper into your data. Passwords will initially be given only to the health official. However, additional users can easily be added with the approval of the health official.

The chart below shows the minimum response-rate response rate needed based on staff size.