In Ebola fight, private foundations provide critical financial aid

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES                                                                      Nov. 14, 2014

By Catherine Dunn

The response to the relatively small number of Ebola cases has exposed an important link between the front line against the virus and the national offensive against everything from the flu to hurricane aftermath to the rise of Type 2 diabetes: They all draw on the same set of shrinking public health resources.

Federal disaster preparedness spending has dropped. Government per capita spending on public health in 2012 was roughly $240 per year, about 6 percent less than it was prior to the financial crisis. And in the wake of the recession, the workforce at public and state health departments has lost thousands of jobs.  

“Congress and the executive branch have found these programs easy to cut in the budget process -- because there isn’t an immediate emergency,” says Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health. “And at the state and local level, the recession has caused wide-scale budget cuts across the board.”   

That’s not to say that Ebola is going to overwhelm the U.S. public health system. Rather, the virus should serve as a warning, says Glen Mays, a professor of health services and systems research at the University of Kentucky. “It is certainly illustrating some of the gaps and constraints in our current public health system.”

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