ASTHO Forces of Change Survey, United States, 2017

The Forces of Change Survey is an annual survey completed by the state and territorial health agencies that comprise the membership of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). ASTHO is the national nonprofit organization representing public health agencies in the United States, the U.S. territories and freely associated states, and the District of Columbia, and the over 100,000 public health professionals these agencies employ. The Forces of Change Survey primarily focuses on emergent and rapidly changing trends. The data collected sought to determine the current climate at state and territorial health agencies as it related to budget, workforce, accreditation, and special interest topics. The 2017 Forces of Change Survey examined the following topics:

Health agency resources
Activities related to the Zika virus
Opioid epidemic response
Communicating the value of public health
Efforts to advance health equity
The web-based survey, fielded by ASTHO in May of 2017, was administered to state and territorial health agencies through their senior deputies. A total of 52 health agencies responded (from 46 states, Washington, D.C., and five territories and freely associated states). Data included as part of this collection includes one dataset with 122 variables for 52 cases.