linguistic:translation
United States

The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services concerned with public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The Assistant Secretary for Health oversees the PHS. The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) is the federal uniformed service of the PHS, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States.

The United States lacks a coherent system for the governmental funding of public health, relying on a variety of agencies and programs at the federal, state and local levels. Between 1960 and 2001, public health spending in the United States tended to grow,based on increasing expenditures by state and local government, which made up 80–90% oftotal public health spending. Spending in support of public health in the United States peaked in 2002 and declined in the following decade. State cuts to public health funding during the Great Recession of 2007–2008 were not restored in subsequent years. As of 2012, a panel for the U.S. Institute of Medicine panel warned that the United States spends disproportionately far more on clinical care than it does on public health, neglecting "population-based activities that offer efficient and effective approaches to improving the nation's health." As of 2018, about 3% of government health spending was directed to public health and prevention. This situation has been described as an "uneven patchwork" and "chronic underfunding". The COVID-19 pandemic has been seen as drawing attention to problems in the public health system in the United States and to a lack of understanding of public health and its important role as a common good.