Health Promotion Bureau

The Health Promotion Bureau works to protect health, prevent disease, and promote the health and well-being of Los Angeles residents. It is home to diverse programs addressing a broad range of public health issues that differ in nature and breadth of programming. Some serve primarily as convenors of stakeholder groups in particular areas of public health; some are deeply engaged in funding or overseeing delivery if services or piloting of new models of care. Some engage in a mix of programmatic efforts around a particular topic or population group. The diversity of bureau programs assures frequent opportunities for public health promotion in Los Angeles County.

About Us

Within DPH, programs of the Health Promotion Bureau seek to bring the best of prevention science to support the health of LA residents, working with communities to ensure access to resources needed for optimal health. While our aim is improved health for all residents, we recognize that communities face different and unequal threats to health; our efforts are targeted most to communities at highest risk due to social and economic inequality in any form. Although Health Promotion Bureau programs are diverse in their methods and goals, they are shaped by a set of unifying values. Bureau programs are:

Grounded in science and data driven
Informed by recognition that health is shaped by the interaction of social and biological factors
Responsive to changing developmental and health needs across the lifespan
Guided by awareness that physical health is fundamentally linked to social and emotional health and well-being
Committed to a full range of prevention efforts, from programs designed to support individuals, families and communities striving to avoid risk and achieve health to those aimed at preventing or ameliorating adverse outcomes through family and person-centered care
Committed to universal adoption of trauma-informed policies and practices
Committed to the elimination of racism and other forms of social marginalization that affect health
Aimed at seeking community and systemic, as well as family and individual, solutions to health problems
Committed to partnership with affected communities and residents in design, implementation and evaluation of efforts to improve health

Health Promotion Bureau Divisions

Children’s Medical Services (CMS)

CMS' mission is to ensure that children and youth with special health care needs and those from low-income families have access to health services and family assistance that maximize their physical, mental and social health, their overall development and their well-being. CMS programs assist in assuring access to specialized medical care for children and teens with a range of health conditions. Staff work particularly closely with the Department of Child and Family Services to assure appropriate attention to special health needs of children in that system. They also provide a variety of therapies in school settings to children whose growth and development require specialized care.

Director: Dr. Anna Long | CCS Program: 1-800-288-4584; email: CCS@ph.lacounty.gov | CHDP Program: 1-800-993-2437; email: CHDP@ph.lacounty.gov

Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention (CDIP)

The primary mission of CSDIP is improve the health of LA residents by working with community partners and other stakeholders to reduce the risks and burden of chronic disease, injury, and to address social conditions that affect health by promoting well-being and quality of life for all residents in this diverse county. Specific programs range from Vision Zero, which focuses on the safety of drivers and walkers through a focus on injury hot spots across the county to a new grant that focuses on prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease among elders.

Director: Dr. Tony Kuo | (213) 351-7825 | chronic_disease@ph.lacounty.gov

Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health (MCAH)

MCAH's guiding vision is for all women, infants, children, adolescents, and their families in Los Angeles County to thrive in a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment. Major programs of the division’s Child and Adolescent Health Unit include Health Me Grow, a national model that works to connect families of young children to services of all kinds, but with a special focus on developmental services and school readiness and Positive Youth Development, which supports a countywide Youth Council the members of which advise the department on effective strategies for youth outreach and education. Major programs of the division’s Perinatal and Infant Health Division include home visiting, Black Infant Health, and the African American Infant and Maternal Mortality Initiative (AAIMM) which serves as home to this county’s implementation of the Perinatal Equity Initiative, a new pilot program that funds doula care for Black birthing people and a range of other activities that address racism as the fundamental cause of Black-white differences in birth outcomes.

Director: TBA | (213) 639-6400 | gsandoval@ph.lacounty.gov

Office of Women's Health (OWH)

In order to improve the health of women in Los Angeles County, OWH uses a multipronged approach, working at the community, systems/policy, and individual levels. OWH promotes health equity, provides education, and promotes resources, programs and policies that are response to women. OWH strives to increase access to culturally competent, comprehensive health services. OWH also manages a network of DPSS contracts that fund domestic violence shelters throughout the County.

Director: Ellen Eidem | (626) 293-2600 | owh@ph.lacounty.gov

Substance Abuse Prevention and Control (SAPC)

The SAPC program leads and facilitates the delivery of a full spectrum of prevention, treatment, and recovery support services proven to reduce the impact of substance use, abuse, and addiction in Los Angeles County. Services are provided through contracts with over 150 community-based organizations to County residents, particularly the un- and/or underinsured. SAPC staff serve as technical experts and consultants to meet the needs of the public and contracted organizations in the field of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use and abuse. Prevention initiatives generally rely on community-based providers to educate and engage residents in efforts to avert addiction. A current prevention priority is the implementation of 50 Wellbeing Centers housed in high schools throughout the county that provide student support, peer leadership, sexual and reproductive health services (in partnership with Planned Parenthood) and mental health services (n partnership with the Department of Mental Health).

Director: Dr. Gary Tsai | (626) 299-4101 | ghernandez@ph.lacounty.gov

The Office for the Advancement of Early Care and Education (OAECE)

OAECE works closely with two leadership councils (the Policy Roundtable and the ECE Planning Council) to shape policy recommendations, facilitate planning, and provide a range of services aimed at improving the availability, quality and access to early care and education programs. The Office supports efforts to promote informed parents’ choice of early care and education services and the meaningful engagement of parents in those services. And finally, the Office works across disciplines to promote access to concrete supports that families need.

Director: Debra Colman | dcolman@ph.lacounty.gov

Domestic Violence Council (DVC)

Moved to DPH from the CEO’s Office two years ago, the DVC provides leadership in the creation and support of a victim/survivor-centered, coordinated countywide approach to addressing intimate partner violence. The DVC includes survivors, public agencies, county departments and community-based organizations (CBOs). Through its general meetings and committee work, the DVC addresses ongoing and new issues impacting survivors, their families, people who commit acts of intimate partner violence and those providing related services throughout Los Angeles County. Within DPH and the county more generally, this office has served as a voice for DV awareness, providing training to hundreds of programs and employees about the importance of awareness concerning DV across the breadth of County programming.

Office of Violence Prevention (OVP)

The OVP, established within the Department of Public Health in 2019, spent its first year establishing a County Leadership Council and a Community Advisory Council to help the office set a shared direction for county programs that respond to violence. OVP collaborates with these community and county partners to support the prevention of multiple forms of violence and contributing factors, and ensure that strategies are responsive to community, and trauma informed. Staff monitor trends and examine the circumstances of violent deaths affecting LA communities to inform decision makers and program planners about ways to prevent and intervene on violence in the community, at home and in the workplace. Based on a strategic plan that was approved by both councils this fall, a key OVP priority is the establishment and funding of community antiviolence coalitions in each of the county’s eight Service Planning Areas.

Director: Andrea Welsing | 626.293.2610 | ovp@ph.lacounty.gov