Background

In its initial efforts to strengthen our nation's public health workforce, the Council set out to map the pipeline of public health professionals, charting how, when, and why individuals enter and leave governmental public health agencies. Available qualitative data was used to map the basic public health pipeline and learn where the largest gaps exist - information about the number of public health workers was collected. Click here to view information on the Council's latest efforts to map the pipeline.

This issue of The Link further discusses the issue of public health worker shortages, and highlights strategies used by the National Education Association (NEA) to alleviate worker shortages. In addition, the Council convened a forum aimed at highlighting evidence on effective recruitment and retention strategies.

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Tools You Can Use
Literature Search on Recruitment and Retention 2009 - The National Library of Medicine has conducted a literature search to help inform the public health community about strategies to address worker shortages. This document contains citations and abstracts for 48 research articles and projects on recruitment and retention efforts, and why certain individuals choose to take jobs in the public sector.

Literature Search on Recruitment and Retention 2007 - The National Library of Medicine conducted some literature searches to help the Council begin to compile information relating to the public health agency pipeline.

Literature Search on Recruitment and Retention 2004 - The National Library of Medicine conducted a literature search to help inform the public health community about strategies to address worker shortages. This document contains citations and abstracts for more than 200 research articles and projects on recruitment and retention efforts.

Strategies to Address Public Health Worker Shortages - This table lists strategies to alleviate public health worker shortages that were suggested by participants of the January 2005 Council meeting. It includes links to sample projects, relevant research, and other resources. Additional resources from public health and other fields are available here.

Academic/Practice Partnerships to Strengthen Recruitment and Retention - The 2006 and 2005 databases of academic/practice linkages focus on partnerships to improve public health worker recruitment and retention. For more detailed descriptions of some of those collaborative efforts, read the Fall 2005 issue of The Link.

Additional Resources - Review the workforce capacity section of the Public Health Infrastructure Resource Center for more information on this topic. View a presentation that outlines potential strategies for recruiting, re-tooling, and retaining the public health workforce. The presentation was given during a 2007 National Association of City and County Health Officials workforce discussion.

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Council Projects

Evidence-Based Forum on Effective Recruitment and Retention Efforts
In 2005, the Council convened a forum to highlight evidence on effective recruitment and retention strategies. (View background information - PDF about the forum and a summary - PDF of the event.) The following experts spoke about workforce shortages in public health and other fields:

Kathleen Nolan - Director, Health Division, Center for Best Practices, National Governors Association (Bio  Presentation)

Tom Blanford - Associate Director for Teacher Quality, National Education Association (Bio  Presentation)

Edward S. Salsberg - Director, Center for Workforce Studies, Association of American Medical Colleges (Bio  Presentation)

Jean Moore - Director, Center for Health Workforce Studies, SUNY Albany School of Public Health (Bio  Presentation)

During the meeting, Council members also generated a list of related research questions.