A Tale of Two Departments: Public Health in Harris County and the City of Houston

But in many cases, overlap does not mean providing the same Houston, the Harris County Department of Public Health public health services to the same population, but, rather, and the City of Houston Department of Health and Human providing the same public health services to adjacent pop- Services both provide public health services, albeit mostly ulations—the City of Houston and Harris County outs. [...] It is clear that although the Harris County Public Health Consolidation of all public health services into either the Department and the City of Houston Health Department city or the county government will create governance and do not literally provide the same services to the same pop- financing challenges that will be hard to overcome. [...] Department of Public Health and the City of Houston Department of Health and Human Services and identify Both departments provided a significant amount of infor- options to reduce those overlaps and increase the efficien- mation, but partly owing to COVID-19, this information cy and effectiveness of the public health delivery system. [...] The provision of essential public health services by the City and the provi- sion of the same or similar services under agreement with the County for the provision of County services, in combi- nation with County resources made available, is intended to result in a service delivery that is effective, efficient, and accessible.” Travis County’s financial contribution to the city’s public health dep. [...] An An alternative would be to adopt the San Antonio-Bexar MOU is simply an agreement between the city and the County model, which establishes a district but designates county, while a health district can be created by a major- the Houston Health Department as the public health en- ity vote of both the Houston City Council and the Harris tity for all of Harris County.