Funding Uses

In 1981, Congress authorized the PHHS Block Grant. The PHHS Block Grant gives its 61 grantees which include all 50 states, the District of Columbia, 2 American Indian tribes, and 8 U.S. territories the independence and flexibility to tailor prevention and health promotion programs to their particular public health needs. States are expected to align their programs with Healthy People 2020 national goals.

The Block Grant is the primary source of flexible funding that provides states the latitude to fund any of 265 national health objectives available in the nation's Healthy People 2020 health improvement plan.

Because of the variance in the allowable uses of the funds, no two states allocate their block grant resources in the same way, and no two states provide similar amounts of funding to the same program or activities. A strong emphasis is being placed on adolescents, communities with little or poor health care services, and disadvantaged populations. The states depend on the block grant to support public health funding where no other adequate resources are available.

Visit HealthyPeople.gov which features Healthy People 2020 publications.