42 U.S.C. § 295 — General provisions

(a) In general The Secretary may give grants or contracts to eligible groups to grow the public health workforce, improve its quality, and help it meet national, state, and local health needs. (b) Eligibility To be eligible, a group must (1) be (A) a health professions school — including an accredited public health, health administration, preventive medicine, or dental public health school, or a school with health management programs; (B) an academic health center; (C) a state or local government; or (D) another appropriate public or nonprofit private group; and (2) apply to the Secretary however the Secretary requires. (c) Preference The Secretary may favor groups that (1) serve disadvantaged students, including underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities, and (2) graduate a large share of students who go on to work in underserved communities. (d) Activities Grant or contract money may pay for: (1) planning, building, or running demonstration training programs; (2) faculty development; (3) trainee support; (4) technical assistance; (5) planning and building new — or maintaining and improving existing — residency programs in preventive medicine and dental public health that have full-time qualified faculty, plus financial help for residents in those programs; (6) retraining current public health workers and training new ones for priority public health, preventive medicine, dentistry, and administration needs; (7) preparing public health professionals for state and local jobs; (8) public health workforce loan repayment programs; or (9) other activities that fit this section's purpose. (e) Traineeships (1) In general: Training programs funded here must be designed to (A) make public health education more available to the public and private health workforce; (B) make academic training more relevant to future public health practice; (C) let students from regular campus programs train at practice-based sites; or (D) develop distance-learning and other teaching methods that fit adult learners and build knowledge of community-based cultural diversity in public health. (2) Severe shortage disciplines: This money may fund traineeships for students at accredited public health schools who study fields with a severe shortage of professionals — including epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, toxicology, public health nursing, nutrition, preventive medicine, maternal and child health, and behavioral and mental health.