Workforce Research
The ASPPH Center for Public Health Workforce Development conducts public health workforce research to understand, anticipate, and respond to the evolving needs of the field.
Public health workforce research provides critical insights into the size, composition, skills, needs, and challenges facing the public health workforce.
It enables policymakers, educators, and public health leaders to make informed decisions about how to train, deploy, and support public health professionals effectively. By identifying gaps in competencies, emerging areas of need, and barriers to workforce entry and advancement, research ensures that educational programs and professional development initiatives are aligned with practice priorities. By grounding public health workforce development in evidence, research strengthens the public health infrastructure, improves population health outcomes, and ensures a resilient, skilled workforce ready to address both today’s challenges and tomorrow’s crises.
Governmental Public Health Job Task Analysis
To further strengthen the U.S. governmental public health workforce, ASPPH and our practice partners conducted a job task analysis to systematically identify the key tasks, responsibilities, and skills necessary for governmental public health jobs at various career levels. A job task analysis is conducted by developing a comprehensive list of job tasks used to design a survey, distributing a survey to employees performing the job, collecting their ratings on the importance and frequency of each job task, and analyzing the responses to identify key job domains and tasks. The governmental public health job task analysis informs recruitment, retention, evaluation, education, training, and credentialing of this critical workforce.
Fact Sheet
(PDF)
Disease Intervention Job Task Analysis
ASPPH is working with the National Board of Public Health Examiners to develop the National Certified in Disease Intervention (CDI) Program that will improve public health and clinical outcomes to prevent and control emerging and re-emerging infectious disease threats through the development of national practice standards and core competencies of the disease intervention workforce. An important step in developing the national CDI program is performing a job task analysis, which systematically identifies and documents the responsibilities associated with a particular job or role within an organization to inform certification examination development.
Fact Sheet
(PDF)
Publications
NOVEMBER 6, 2024
Bridging the Gap: Aligning Education for Public Health with Emerging Workforce Demands
American Journal of Public Health (2024)
OCTOBER 22, 2024
An Immediate but Fleeting Interest in MPH Programs After the Onset of COVID-19: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis
Health Education & Behavior (2024)
MAY 24, 2024
Racial and Ethnic Composition of Departments of Health Policy, Management, Education, and Behavioral Sciences
American Journal of Public Health (2024)
JANUARY 9, 2024
The Impact of Student Loan Debt on Public Health Graduates
A Public Health Reports study titled “Federal Student Loan Debt in Public Health and the Opportunities for Loan Repayment Programs” highlights the significant federal student loan debt burden for public health graduates. It explores how loan repayment…
