Today, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) announced its new structure aimed at strengthening its public health portfolio with a more streamlined organization poised to provide stronger cross-cutting, science-based, health-promoting leadership on our nation’s most important public health topics.

These changes, proposed by a working group of experienced career staff, aim to improve the integrity and quality of OASH’s programs and increase operational efficiencies by eliminating program redundancies and decreasing program costs.  More importantly, the reorganization will better align technical and programmatic expertise to meet the future challenges of public health, and to better execute bold initiatives, including  Ending the HIV Epidemic: a Plan for America.

“As public health challenges and opportunities emerge, our office must evolve to ensure that we can meet current national needs and anticipate tomorrow’s challenges,” said Adm. Brett P. Giroir, M.D., assistant secretary for health. “This new structure will enable OASH to maximize the productivity and creativity of staff while improving efficiency in order to realize the OASH mission— to lead America to healthier lives.”

The changes to the organization:

• Move the Office of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition (PCSFN) to within the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP). 
• Merge the office of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Policy (OHAIDP) and the National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) into a newly renamed office, the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy (OIDP). 
• Move the Office of Adolescent Health to within the Office of Population Affairs (OPA).
• Realign all Title X family planning project staff in the 10 HHS regional offices to report directly to OPA Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland.

Through this reorganization, OASH will continue to build upon its many strengths by increasing programmatic capacity, improving the quality of clinical service delivery, and creating efficiencies across offices and the entire organization.  Additionally, OASH has identified a variety of other ways to improve the functioning of its programs through more efficient operations, such as the creation of a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regional Operations and the Commissioned Corps Modernization Initiative. 

A Federal Register notice published today includes details of the plan, which will be effective on June 10, 2019.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides public health and science advice to the Secretary, and oversees the Department’s broad-ranging public health offices, whose missions include HIV policy, women’s health, disease prevention, human research protections and others. OASH also includes the Office of the Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

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