Professionalization of the public health workforce: scoping review and call to action.

BACKGROUND: The 'WHO-ASPHER Roadmap to Professionalizing the Public Health Workforce in the European Region' provides recommendations for strategic and systematic workforce planning around professionalization levers including: (i) competencies, (ii) training and education, (iii) formal organization, (iv) professional credentialing and (v) code of ethics and professional conduct as well as taxonomy and enumeration. It was based on a literature review till 2016. This scoping review aims to explore how the professionalization was documented in the literature between 2016 and 2022. METHODS: Following the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines, we searched Medline via PubMed, Web of Science, ERIC via EBSCO and Google Scholar and included studies on professionalization levers. Four critical appraisal tools were used to assess qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods studies and grey literature. The PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) was used for reporting. RESULTS: Eleven articles included in this review spanned 61 countries, targeting undergraduate, master's, doctoral degrees and continuing professional development. Most of these documents were reviews. About half provided a definition of the public health workforce; more than half covered the taxonomy and included information about competences, but the use of frameworks was sporadic and inconsistent. Formal organization and the necessity of a code of conduct for the public health workforce were acknowledged in only two studies. CONCLUSIONS: In spite of some efforts to professionalize the public health workforce, this process is fragmented and not fully recognized and supported. There is an urgent need to engage policymakers and stakeholders to prioritize investments in strengthening the public health workforce worldwide.

European accreditation and the future public health workforce.

BACKGROUND: In 2011 the Agency for Public Health Education Accreditation (APHEA) was initially launched focusing on Master level (second cycle) education. METHODS: Between 2012 and 2013 the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region, APHEA and partner schools conducted a study on the compliance of Master level programmes of public health to the accreditation criteria. A web-based survey of second cycle programmes of public health across 29 countries was conducted using the APHEA criteria. The 29 countries were categorized into four regions: Northern, Southern, Central and Eastern and Western. We applied a Chi square test to identify regional differences with regard to the compliance of the programmes to the criteria. RESULTS: Data from 51 out of 71 schools contacted were analyzed. The compliance to the two themes of student and faculty exchange and quality management were lowest for programmes of public health throughout the EHEA. There were significant differences in the compliance between the regions with higher compliance in the Northern European region. CONCLUSIONS: Student and faculty exchange and quality management are essential for schools and programmes of public health to improve the quality of their education through expanding international knowledge and the pertinence of skills taught within European and national contexts. The results show that there are intrinsic issues with exchange and quality management as well as the role of national accreditation agencies in defining public health education for the future workforce.

The role of schools of public health in capacity building.

Public health has been an enormously effective instrument for improving life expectancy and quality of life. Historically a sphere of governmental activity led by physicians and staffed by sanitarians and nurses, public health has evolved to become a multi-facetted field of societal activity. It engages many agencies and community action in reducing infectious and non-communicable diseases as well as many aspects of lifestyle and health equity. Education for an adequate professional workforce is one of its key functions. Schools of public health have fulfilled this role only partly even in developed countries, but in countries in transition and in low-income countries the problem is much more acute. We discuss the role of mentoring of new schools calling for strong public and private donor support for this as a key issue in global health.