Public health professionals across the country strive to make a difference in their communities by protecting and promoting the health of the population. As the Institute of Medicine noted in its 2003 report, Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? Educating Public Health Professionals for the 21st Century, "[m]any achievements in reducing mortality and morbidity during the past century can be traced directly to public health initiatives. The extent to which we are able to make additional improvements in the health of the public depends, in large part, upon the quality and preparedness of the public health workforce, which is, in turn, dependent upon the relevance and quality of its education and training."1 Effective delivery of the Essential Public Health Services requires a highly trained and competent public health workforce. But how do we identify competence?
The
Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals (Core Competencies) offer one guide to building and maintaining competence within the public health workforce. Developed by the
Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice (Council on Linkages), the Core Competencies are a consensus set of competencies that represent agreement from public health academia and practice on the characteristics of an effective public health workforce. Collectively, these competencies describe the skills and knowledge desirable for the broad practice of public health.
Originally released in 2001, the Core Competencies underwent extensive revision to address changes in the field of public health and to improve their relevance for professionals in different career roles, culminating in the adoption of a revised set of competencies in 2010. Throughout the development and revision process, public comment periods were held and thousands of comments from practicing public health professionals were considered to help ensure that the competencies capture the reality of public health. The Core Competencies are widely used, with recent data showing use by more than 60% of state health departments,2 approximately 30% of local health departments,3 and greater than 90% of academic institutions4 in activities such as assessing training needs, creating training plans, crafting job descriptions, and developing curricula. This success of the Core Competencies is based upon a foundation of collaboration and consensus building.
The Core Competencies represent just one example of what can be accomplished when the public health community comes together to improve the public health workforce. The Council on Linkages continues to further its
collaborative initiatives; public health professionals and organizations join together in the
Academic Health Department Learning Community to support connections between health departments and academic institutions; and public health professionals continue to learn together through
TRAIN, the nation’s premier learning management system for public health. All of these efforts and more strengthen the public health workforce and ultimately the nation’s health.
Footnotes