[Training in community health: challenges, threats and opportunities. SESPAS Report 2018]

Incorporating community health teaching in the undergraduate nursing and medicine curriculum and postgraduate training programmes contributes to enhance the quality, rigour and sustainability of health-promoting community interventions. In this article, we discuss the failure of Spanish Medical Universities to include family and community medicine and primary health care as integrated and cross-cutting disciplines on the undergraduate curriculum. During specialized medical and nursing training, community health teaching varies widely depending on the qualification, priorities and motivation of the primary health care workers, teaching units and trainees. Growing job instability and current nurse and medical recruitment systems, are hindering learning being put into practice, as well as the development of health-promoting community activities and the strengthening of training networks and facilities. Amid such adversity, there are initiatives that provide quality training on community health and should, accordingly, be fostered and acknowledged.