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Trends in the conferral of public health degrees provide a lens into the public health workforce. As the needs of workforce development grow and change, it is imperative to accurately characterize trends in degree conferrals to estimate the future size and composition of the public health workforce. The challenging task of enumerating public health degree conferrals aligns with the equally challenging task of enumerating the public health workforce, for which the “methodology used needs further improvements in standardization, specificity, data storage, and data availability.” Although a 2015 study characterized the growth of the undergraduate public health major in the United States, our study focused on graduate-level public health education trends in the United States.

This viewpoint examines the impact of COVID-19 travel bans and remote education on the global health education of students from high-income countries (HIC) and low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and explores potential opportunities for strengthening global health education based upon more dispersed and equitable practices. Global health is unique in the opportunities it can offer to students during the pandemic if programs can manage and learn from the pandemic's many challenges. Global health educators can: shift to sustainable remote engagement and mobilize resources globally to facilitate this; collaborate with partners to support the efforts to deal with the current pandemic and to prepare for its next phases; partner in new ways with health care professional students and faculty from other countries; collaborate in research with partners in studies of pandemic related health disparities in any country; and document and examine the impact of the pandemic on health care workers and students in different global contexts. These strategies can help work around pandemic travel restrictions, overcome the limitations of existing inequitable models of engagement, and better position global health education and face future challenges while providing the needed support to LMIC partners to participate more equally.

In 2003, the Institute of Medicine called for all undergraduate college students to have access to education in public health. Several major national initiatives have been launched to achieve this goal, such as the Educated Citizen and Public Health Initiative hosted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities in partnership with the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH), and the ASPPH-led 2010 Undergraduate Public Health Learning Outcomes Model that introduces students to public health at two- and four-year colleges and universities. Here, Leider et al analyze this previously unused administrative dataset to improve the understanding of trends in public health undergraduate training during the past two decades.

Recent years have brought rapid growth in schools of public health and an increasing demand for public health practitioners. These trends highlight the need for innovative approaches to prepare doctoral graduates for academic and high-level practice positions. The University of Maryland’s School of Public Health developed a “Preparing Future Faculty and Professionals” program to enrich the graduate education and professional development of its doctoral students. We describe the program’s key elements, including foundational seminars to enhance students’ knowledge and skills related to teaching, research, and service; activities designed to foster career exploration and increase competitiveness in the job market; and independent, faculty-mentored teaching and research experiences. We present a model for replicating the program and share student outcomes of participation.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to (1) determine the degree of alignment between an existing public health curricula and disease intervention specialist (DIS) workforce training needs, (2) assess the appropriateness of public health education for DISs, and (3) identify existing curriculum gaps to inform future DIS training efforts. Methods: Using the iterative comparison analysis process of crosswalking, we compared DIS job tasks and knowledge competencies across a standard Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH)-accredited bachelor of science in public health (BSPH) and master of public health (MPH) program core curricula offered by the Georgia Southern University Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health. Four researchers independently coded each DIS task and competency as addressed or not in the curriculum and then discussed all matches and non-matches between coders. Researchers consulted course instructors when necessary, and discussion between researchers continued until agreement was reached on coding. Results: The BSPH curriculum aligned with 75% of the DIS job tasks and 42% of the DIS knowledge competencies. The MPH core curriculum aligned with 55% of the job tasks and 40% of the DIS knowledge competencies. Seven job tasks and 9 knowledge competencies were considered unique to a DIS and would require on-the-job training. Conclusions: Findings suggest that an accredited public health academic program, grounded in CEPH competencies, could address multiple components of DIS educational preparation. Similar analyses should be conducted at other CEPH-accredited schools and programs of public health to account for variations in curriculum.

Objectives A skilled workforce is essential to advancing maternal and child health (MCH) in a rapidly changing public health system. Little is known about the MCH workforce’s existing capacity to maximize opportunities afforded by ongoing change. We assessed MCH workforce capacity in three areas: Systems Integration, Evidence-Based Decision-Making, and Change Management/Adaptive Leadership. We then examined associations between workforce capacity and modifiable workforce development strategies/resources. Methods Data are from the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS). The present study was limited to employees working in MCH programs (weighted N = 3062). Workforce capacity was operationalized as self-reported awareness of public health trends and proficiency to perform related skills in the three areas. Survey-weighted generalized estimating equations were used to fit logistic regression models accounting for employee clustering within states. Results While awareness of public health trends was low, the majority of employees (> 70% in each area) reported proficiency to perform skills related to these trends. Capacity was lowest in Systems Integration. Employee engagement in academic partnerships and higher state contributions to MCH program budgets were the strategies/resources most consistently associated with higher capacity. Workplace support was the strongest correlate of capacity in Change Management/Adaptive Leadership. Conclusions for Practice Although employees lacked familiarity with specific public health trends, they were proficient in skills needed to engage in related work. Still, areas for improvement remain. Results provide a baseline against which future training efforts can be evaluated. Academic partnerships and MCH program funding may be useful to prioritize in the context of health transformation.

As the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Welch-Rose report approaches, the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) has been pursuing two initiatives to spark innovation in academic partnerships for enhancing population health: (1) Framing the Future: The Second 100 Years of Education for Public Health and (2) Reconnecting Public Health and Care Delivery to Improve the Health of Populations. We describe how ASPPH-member schools and programs accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health, along with their extraordinarily diverse array of partners, are working to improve education that better prepares health professionals to meet 21st-century population health needs.

The aim of this study is to enrich public health emergency management (PHEM) curricula and increase the workforce readiness of graduates through the implementation of an innovative curriculum structure centered around simulation and the creation of authentic learning experiences into a mastery-based Disaster Preparedness graduate certificate program launched in 2016 at the Colorado School of Public Health. Learners progress through a sequence of increasingly complex discussion and operations-based exercises designed to align with training methodologies used by future employers in the disaster response field, covering PHEM fundamentals and domestic and international disaster preparedness and response. Preliminary feedback is overwhelmingly positive, equating the experience to securing an internship. Embedding simulation-based exercises and authentic learning environments into graduate curricula exposes learners to diverse disaster scenarios, provides occasion for practicing critical thinking and dynamic problem solving, increases familiarity with anticipated emergency situations, and builds the confidence necessary for exercising judgment in a real-world situation. This novel curriculum should serve as a model for graduate programs wishing to enrich traditional training tactics using a typical school of public health support and alignment with community resources. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:777–781)

As public health schools and programs prepare for the future, they can also serve as a natural training ground for leadership. Many schools have already begun to launch innovations in this arena.