The governors of 15 states have joined forces to create a new organization.
The governors – all Democrats – announced the launch of the Governors Public Health Alliance, a group they say is “…designed to protect the health of people across the U.S.” and
…will serve as a nonpartisan coordinating hub for governors and their public health leaders. The Governors Public Health Alliance will support Governors and their states in coordinating and collaborating to protect the public’s health by facilitating data sharing and communication about health threat detection, emergency preparedness and response, public health guidance and policy, and deployment of experts.
In addition, the group explained that it
… supports national coordination on public health at the gubernatorial level – complementing existing mechanisms and interfacing with entities like the Northeast Public Health Collaborative and West Coast Health Alliance. The Governors Public Health Alliance will serve as a unified, cross-state liaison with the global health community and will facilitate cross-state collaboration by bringing together regional and other groups to share best practices and surface common challenges, elevating national considerations for vaccine policy and regulatory solutions to keep science front and center.
The states involved in the group are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington and the U.S. territory of Guam.
Learn more about the group, including the perspectives of the individual governors and why they chose to participate, from this Governors Public Health Alliance’s news release.