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Council on Linkages Meeting Summary
March 2026
| | Association of State and Territorial Health Officials Names New Council on Linkages Representative | |
The Council on Linkages welcomes new representative for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), Charity Menefee, MA. Ms. Menefee is an Associate Professor and Director of Regional Programs and Partnerships within the Department of Environmental, Agricultural, and Occupational Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and previously served as the Director of the Division of Public Health in the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.
| | Public Health Accreditation Board Refreshes the Accreditation Standards & Measures | | As part of its ongoing efforts to strengthen the public health workforce, the Council on Linkages has dedicated time during each meeting for member organizations and other partners to share how they are working to rebuild and sustain the public health workforce. During this meeting, Dr. Joneigh S. Khaldun, MD, MPH, FACEP, President and CEO of the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB), and Marita Chilton, MPH, Senior Director of Accreditation and Recognition, PHAB, shared updates on PHAB’s current priorities, including the development of Standards & Measures, Version 2026. Key updates included the intentional alignment of standards and measures across accreditation and reaccreditation into a single unified set and the addition of staff retention to Standard 8.1 under Domain 8, which focuses on workforce development. The refreshed Standards & Measures will go into effect July 1, 2026, with a launch webinar being planned for late June and updated templates to follow. | | New Certification Programs and Research Initiatives from the National Board of Public Health Examiners | | The National Board of Public Health Examiners (NBPHE) is expanding its certification offerings. NBPHE recently launched the new Certified in Disease Intervention (CDI) certification for disease intervention specialists, with exam fees waived through the end of September 2026. A Public Health Nursing certification is planned for late 2026. A Certified in Public Health Essentials (CPHE) certification for early career professionals is in early development for 2027; volunteers are needed to help write exam items. NBPHE is also focused on growing partnerships with health departments to support cohort-based Certified in Public Health (CPH) certification, newly launched dashboards allowing schools to track student performance on the CPH exam, and ongoing research initiatives including a competency mapping project in collaboration with the Council on Education for Public Health and the Council on Linkages and an analysis of more than 500,000 recertification credits reported by CPH professionals. | Supporting Workforce Wellbeing: New Resources from the National Association of County and City Health Officials | The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) has developed a new Joy in Work Practice Guide to accompany its existing Joy in Work Toolkit. While the resources were developed with local health departments in mind, they are applicable across public health organizations. Together, the suite of resources supports all nine components of the Joy in Work framework across staff roles — from senior leaders to the broader workforce — offering practical strategies to foster engagement, reduce burnout, and build more sustainable workplace cultures. Cultivating joy in the workplace does not require massive organizational change, but rather can start with small, incremental shifts. Read the blog post, Finding Passion and Purpose in Our Public Health Work with NACCHO’s Joy in Work Resources, to learn more. | Council on Linkages Initiatives: Academic Health Department Partnerships, Core Competencies, and Retention and Recruitment | |
With more than 1,400 members nationwide, the Academic Health Department (AHD) Learning Community supports the development, sustainability, and expansion of formal partnerships between health departments and academic institutions. Key lessons learned for successful AHD partnerships are being gleaned from recent AHD Partnerships Environmental Scan projects, including the importance of open communication, trust, dedicated partnership staff, shared goals, and formal structures. With support from ASTHO through the Public Health Infrastructure Grant program, the Public Health Foundation (PHF) is also working on several new resources, including a new AHD partnership success story, two webinars in June 2026 highlighting AHD partnerships in California and North Dakota, and one additional AHD partnerships environmental scan for a state or local health department.
The Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals (Core Competencies), which have supported workforce development activities across the country since 2001, are widely used in health departments and major national initiatives. Recent examples of the Core Competencies in action were highlighted through an ASTHO webinar on workforce planning, featuring speakers from PHF and the Kentucky Department for Public Health, New York State Department of Health, and Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, who shared how they are using the Core Competencies in job descriptions, training plans, competency assessments, and academic curricula. The webinar archive is available through the TRAIN Learning Network.
The Council on Linkages and PHF also continue to support workforce retention and recruitment through the Retention and Recruitment Toolkit, which offers practical strategies to strengthen the public health workforce, improve retention, reduce recruitment needs, and build a diverse, skilled team. The toolkit is designed to evolve over time, and recent additions include the Student Career Pathways Toolkit developed by the New England Public Health Training Center and NACCHO’s Joy in Work resources. Suggestions for additional resources are welcome by contacting Mayela Arana at marana@phf.org.
For more information on Council on Linkages activities, please visit the Council on Linkages website or contact Mayela Arana at marana@phf.org.
| | Council on Linkages’ Strategic Directions and Path Forward | The Council on Linkages is guided by its Strategic Directions, 2023–2027 and has, in recent years, focused primarily on strengthening the AHD Learning Community, developing and supporting the Core Competencies, and engaging in initial work on public health workforce retention and recruitment. During this meeting, Council on Linkages members reflected on the current Strategic Directions and discussed the path forward. A key take-away: the current moment calls for collective action among national public health organizations to sustain the workforce development infrastructure that has been built over time — and that each member organization has something meaningful to contribute to that shared effort. | |
- PHF invites all Council on Linkages members and friends to save the date for the 2026 Public Health Learning Forum, taking place virtually November 16–19, 2026, at no cost to attendees. The event will feature sessions focused on workforce development, performance management, and quality improvement. Sponsorship opportunities are available to help keep the event free; those interested in sponsoring may contact Mike Barry at mbarry@phf.org. Registration and additional details will be shared through the PHF website and the Council on Linkages Update in the coming months.
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The next Council on Linkages meeting has not yet been scheduled. Staff will reach out to members in the near future to schedule that meeting in Fall 2026.
Additional information about the meeting, including the agenda and other meeting materials, is available on the meeting webpage.
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Questions and comments may be emailed to Mayela Arana at marana@phf.org
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