The Public Health Workforce

Today our Nation faces a widening gap between challenges to improve the health of Americans and the capacity of the public health workforce to meet those challenges.  The public health community is actively engaged in a wide range of activities to keep the current workforce up to date and to anticipate future needs.  As a leadership forum for action on public health infrastructure issues, the Steering Committee of the Public Health Functions Project (see Appendix A) in September 1994 commissioned the Subcommittee on Public Health

Workforce, Training, and Education to review factors related to workforce challenges and to make recommendations for an action plan.    Their charge was as follows: To further an understanding of the public health workforce, a Subcommittee  . . . is charged with providing a profile of the current public health workforce and making projections regarding the workforce of the 21^st century.  As a part of this effort, the Subcommittee should examine the current and future shortfalls in the public health workforce, looking broadly at Federal, State and local levels, in public health departments as well as mental health, substance abuse, and environmental health agencies and at the emerging need for public health competencies in managed care systems, health plans, and in other governmental agencies such as departments of agriculture, education, and justice.  The

Subcommittee should also address training and education issues including curriculum development for graduate training in public health and ongoing training and development activities to ensure a competent workforce to perform the essential functions of public health now and in the future.  Minority representation in public health disciplines should be analyzed and the programs to increase representation should be reviewed and evaluated.  Distance learning and other advanced technology training methods should be explored to ensure that training and education activities are carried out in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. Therefore, the Subcommittee shall examine the financing mechanisms for curriculum development and for strengthening the training  and education infrastructure, as well as explore the feasibility of establishing a Council on Graduate Public Health Education.

The Public Health Functions Steering Committee also developed a consensus statement, entitled Public Health in America, in 1994. Building further upon the core functions of public health (assessment, policy development, and assurance) identified by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in its 1988 study The Future of Public Health, the consensus statement describes what public health does and what services are essential to achieving healthy people in healthy communities. Successful provision of these essential services requires collaboration among public and private partners  within a given community and across various levels of government.  The Subcommittee used these essential services as a framework for their respective activities.