​In its April 2015 supplement issue focusing on advancing Public Health Services and Systems Research (PHSSR), the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) has published “Profile of the Public Health Workforce: Registered TRAIN Learners in the United States.” The paper, a collaboration between the Public Health Foundation (PHF), Jeffrey A. Jones, PhD, Sunny Chanthavongsa, MPH, and Nathan Walker, BS, uses TRAIN data to describe the public health workforce and its characteristics. Understanding the public health workforce and its makeup remains key to building a healthier nation and is part of the PHSSR Research Agenda.

PHF has encouraged professionals who conduct PHHSR to explore how TRAIN data may support their work and research since April 2013. TRAIN data covers more than 900,000 health professionals, over 29,000 trainings, and nearly 4,000 providers of training – millions of data points when evaluated together. TRAIN remains unmatched in the comprehensive diversity of professionals and organizations it reaches, offering a logical supplement to PHSSR.

The AJPH article extends previous uses of TRAIN data in research, such as Dr. James Bellamy’s “The Uptake of Emergency Preparedness Training at the Local Level: The TRAIN Experience.” These research efforts help validate the utility of TRAIN data to inform public health decision-making.

PHSSR aids health departments around the country in answering challenging questions about how public health organizations can be structured, managed, staffed, and funded to meet the needs of the communities they serve. To build upon existing research through TRAIN data, a 2010 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supported the development of a Data Dictionary, an introductory webinar on Using TRAIN for Research: Your Guide for Using the TRAIN Datasets for Research, and three datasets: Demographics on TRAIN Learners, Information on TRAIN Courses and Competencies, and TRAIN Courses by Competencies and Professional Roles. These resources serve as a foundation for investigating what TRAIN data offers.

PHF welcomes additional requests from researchers for customized, de-identified TRAIN data that meets their specific research needs. Interested researchers should contact PHF’s TRAIN team at training@phf.org for further information.