Building consensus on core teaching content of a digital public health curriculum: a Delphi study with public health...

The digital transformation has substantially altered the competencies required of public health professionals. In Germany, digital public health (DiPH) content is inconsistently integrated into public health degree programs, reflecting the absence of a unified educational framework. To address this gap, this study aimed to establish expert consensus on core teaching content for a DiPH curriculum tailored to public health education in Germany.

A multi-stage Delphi study was conducted between May 2024 and May 2025, involving public health experts from various public health settings to address scientific and practice-related expertise. Three online Delphi rounds were conducted. Experts rated the relevance of predefined and participant-generated teaching content on a 9-point Likert scale. Consensus was defined a priori as a mean score ≥7.0. Teaching content was iteratively included, excluded, or re-evaluated across rounds and clustered into eleven predefined public health topic areas. In the final round, experts additionally prioritized teaching content within topic areas and identified the ten most important content areas overall.

Across the three Delphi rounds, 129 teaching contents were assessed. Consensus was achieved on 80 core teaching content items, spanning 11 public health topic areas. Most content reached consensus after their first presentation. The largest number of teaching content was identified in the domain "Methods in the social sciences," followed by "Health communication" and "Health promotion, education, and prevention." Prioritization exercises highlighted participatory and user-centered approaches, the development and evaluation of DiPH interventions, foundational concepts of digital health and DiPH, and ethical and legal requirements for digital innovations as among the most important teaching content. The final top ten teaching content represented nine of the eleven topic areas.

This study provides a comprehensive, consensus-based set of core teaching content for DiPH education within public health degree programs that can be applied beyond the German context. The findings reflect the breadth and interdisciplinarity of public health in the digital age and emphasize competencies related to co-creation, evaluation of digital interventions, digital health literacy, ethics, and health system transformation. The resulting core curriculum provides a structured foundation for harmonizing DiPH education and preparing the next public health workforce.