The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) released the Applied Epidemiology Competencies (AECs) toolkit, a free, interactive resource designed to help applied epidemiologists put the 2023 AECs into practice. The toolkit provides resources for health departments to assess applied epidemiology knowledge, skills, and abilities across the AEC domains or competency areas and use the results to identify areas of professional development, inform performance reviews and training plans, and aid in career maturation, recruitment, and retention. 

 Specific components include: 

• Toolkit worksheets to provide practical how-to steps to incorporate the competencies into recruitment and retention efforts in health departments
  • Job descriptions (including step-by-step instructions for creating competency-based job descriptions to attract the right candidates for the positions) 
  • Worksheets for career portfolios and training plans, as well as competency-based interview questions specifically for the four tiers of epidemiologists
• Free course trainings on CSTE Learn
• Online, interactive evaluation tools to determine knowledge gaps, inform performance reviews and more 

Learn more about the AECs and the toolkit and for more information, contact Sarah Auer at Sauer@cste.org.