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Enumeration of the public health workforce: developing a system
1Center for Health Policy, School of Nursing, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA.
Summary
Decades have passed without a public health workforce count. This study details methods to estimate the current public health workforce, highlighting data complexity and policy needs for a future workforce database.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Health Policy
- Workforce Development
Background:
- The public health workforce is critical for population health.
- Organized counts of public health workers have not been conducted for decades.
- Existing data is fragmented and complex, hindering accurate assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To enumerate the public health workforce across 57 states and territories.
- To describe the complexity of public health workforce data.
- To propose a scheme for characterizing the workforce using public agency categories.
Main Methods:
- Utilized existing reports, summaries, and surveys.
- Employed a systematic approach to data aggregation and analysis.
- Developed a categorization scheme based on public agency structures.
Main Results:
- Generated a "best current estimate" of the public health workforce.
- Illustrated the complexity and challenges in public health workforce enumeration.
- Identified significant gaps in current public health workforce data.
Conclusions:
- The "best current estimate" highlights the need for updated workforce data.
- Current data limitations pose challenges for effective public health policy and planning.
- Further development of a comprehensive public health workforce database is essential.