The extent of interorganizational resource sharing among local health departments: the association with organizational characteristics and institutional factors.

CONTEXT/OBJECTIVE: Resource sharing, arrangements between local health departments (LHDs) for joint programs or to share staff, is a growing occurrence. The post-9/11 influx of federal funding and new public health preparedness responsibilities dramatically increased the occurrence of these inter-LHD relationships, and several states have pursed more intrastate collaboration. This article describes the current state of resource sharing among LHDs and identifies the factors associated with resource sharing.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Using the National Association of County & City Health Officials' 2010 Profile Survey, we determined the self-reported number of shared programmatic activities and the number of shared organizational functions for a sample of LHDs. Negative binomial regression models described the relationships between factors suggested by interorganizational theory and the counts of sharing activities.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

We examined the extent of resource sharing using 2 different count variables: (1) number of shared programmatic activities and (2) number of shared organizational functions.

RESULTS

About one-half of all LHDs are engaged in resource sharing. The extent of sharing was lower for those serving larger populations, with city jurisdictions, or of larger size. Sharing was more extensive for state-governed LHDs, those covering multiple jurisdictions, states with centralized governance, and in instances of financial constraint.

CONCLUSIONS

Many LHDs are engaged in a greater extent of resource sharing than others. Leaders of LHDs can work within the context of these factors to leverage resource sharing to meet their organizational needs.