Cambridge Public Health Department Achieves National Reaccreditation!

The Cambridge Public Health Department (CPHD) announced on March 5, 2025 that it has achieved national reaccreditation through the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB). The national accreditation program works to improve and protect the health of the public by advancing and ultimately transforming the quality and performance of the nation’s state, local, tribal, and territorial public health departments.

PHAB measures health departments’ competencies across a range of foundational capabilities and domains (content areas). After a review of extensive documentation submitted by the department and a day-long site visit, PHAB found that 100% of CPHD’s measures were fully or largely demonstrated. 

PHAB determined that CPHD’s strongest domains are:

• Enabling Equitable Access to Health Care; and
• Communicating, Informing, and Educating 

The review team identified CPHD’s strongest foundational capabilities as:

• Equity; and 
• Accountability and Performance Management 

“We are pleased and excited to be recognized for achieving national standards that foster effectiveness and promote continuous quality improvement,” said Derrick Neal, Chief Public Health Officer. “The accreditation process helps ensure that the programs and services we provide are as responsive as possible to the needs of our community. I’m extremely proud of the work that CPHD staff perform in Cambridge; it’s rewarding to have their excellence recognized.”

CPHD was first accredited in 2018 for a five-year period; re-accreditation extends this status for the upcoming five years. CPHD is one of only three local health departments in Massachusetts to have achieved accreditation through PHAB (in good company with Boston and Worcester!).

The national accreditation program, jointly supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, sets standards against which the nation’s nearly 3,000 governmental public health departments can continuously improve the quality of their services and performance. To receive accreditation, a health department must undergo a rigorous, multi-faceted, peer-reviewed assessment process to ensure it meets or exceeds a set of quality standards and measures.