Bridging research and practice through competency-based public health education

Reducing the gap between research and practice is gaining much needed attention. Schools of public health can play a role by ensuring that students are taught the necessary knowledge and skills to translate research into practice and to effectively disseminate research and other public health information. Competency-based education is one mechanism by which this can occur. In this article, we introduce a set of competencies specific to translation and dissemination. We describe the process used to develop the set as well as the ways in which we have begun to use these competencies for curriculum review and development. In this way, other schools and training programs in public health can begin to design curricula that will prepare their students to reduce the gap between research and practice. Graduate students will thus be effectively prepared to respond to the changing demands of the field of public health.