MPH’s Schaffner emphasizes need for funding as new TFAH outbreak report is released
Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, TFAH devised a scoring system with metrics such as flu vaccination rates, food safety and HIV/AIDS surveillance — and then evaluated each of the 50 states to see how they stacked up.
The report details ways in which the whole nation could be doing better when it comes to preventive health. And it may come not a moment too soon: Around one in 25 people who are hospitalized each year contracts a health care-associated infection, leading to some 75,000 deaths annually — and only nine states made strides in lowering that number between 2012 and 2013.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, told ABC News that proper funding and support is needed so that epidemiologists have enough laboratories to test and work to stop diseases before there's an outbreak.