Resources
Resources
Getting started
Welcome to phabAI. Whether you're preparing for initial accreditation or reaccreditation, phabAI is designed to simplify every stage of the PHAB accreditation process.
Explore the platform, watch the tutorial, and browse the resources below to learn how to organize accreditation evidence, develop documentation, and prepare submission-ready applications.
Frequently asked questions
PHAB is the Public Health Accreditation Board, the nonprofit organization that sets national standards for governmental public health departments and administers the accreditation program that measures a department against them.
It is a voluntary process in which a health department is evaluated against a nationally recognized set of standards and measures to confirm it delivers the core functions and essential services of public health.
Accreditation signals accountability and quality, strengthens credibility with the community and funders, and drives continuous quality improvement by revealing gaps in capacity and documentation.
Governmental public health departments (Tribal, local, state, territorial, and centralized/shared jurisdictions) are eligible. Requirements include having conducted a community health assessment, a community health improvement plan, and an agency-wide strategic plan.
The standards are organized into domains that map to the ten essential public health services, covering assessment, investigation, communication, community engagement, policy, enforcement, access to care, workforce, quality improvement, and organizational infrastructure.
phabAI is organized around ten domains (D1–D10), grouped into three themes: Assessment (D1–D2), Policy Development (D3–D6), and Assurance (D7–D10).
A domain is a broad area of public health practice; a measure is a specific requirement within a domain; and a sub-element is a discrete piece of documentation or evidence that a measure asks you to provide.
A measure is a single accreditation requirement, for example maintaining a surveillance system, that the department must demonstrate it meets through documented evidence.
Plans, policies, standard operating procedures, reports, meeting minutes, data products, and similar records your department already produces in the course of its work.
It varies by department, but preparing documentation and completing the full process commonly takes a year or more, depending on how much evidence is already organized.
PHAB accreditation is granted for a multi-year term, after which departments complete reaccreditation to maintain their status.
Reaccreditation is the renewal process a department completes at the end of its accreditation term, demonstrating continued conformity with the standards and progress on quality improvement.
At a high level: prerequisites, application, submitting documentation against the measures, a site visit or virtual review, an accreditation decision, and ongoing reporting.
A site visit is a review by trained assessors who examine the department's submitted documentation and interview staff to verify that the measures are met in practice.
Unmet measures are identified during review; the department may be asked to provide additional evidence or address gaps, and persistent gaps factor into the accreditation decision.
No. phabAI helps you draft and organize evidence-grounded responses; the official application, documentation, and decision still go through PHAB's own process and portal.
The authoritative source for standards, eligibility, fees, and timelines is the Public Health Accreditation Board directly, at phaboard.org.