The Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice (Council) is comprised of leaders from national organizations representing the public health practice and academic communities. The Council grew out of the Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum, which developed recommendations for improving the relevance of public health education to the demands of public health in the practice sector. The need for this improvement, and for public health professionals to place a higher value on practice-specific training and research, were documented in the 1988 Institute of Medicine report The Future of Public Health.

The Council's Mission:
To improve public health practice and education by fostering, coordinating, and monitoring links between academia and the public health and healthcare community, developing and advancing innovative strategies to build and strengthen public health infrastructure, and creating a process for continuing public health education throughout one’s career.

Member Organizations:
American College of Preventive Medicine
American Public Health Association
Association of Schools of Public Health
Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
Association for Prevention Teaching and Research
Association of University Programs in Health Administration
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health
Council of Accredited Masters of Public Health Programs
Health Resources and Services Administration
National Association of County and City Health Officials
National Association of Local Boards of Health
National Environmental Health Association
National Network of Public Health Institutes
National Library of Medicine
QUAD Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations
Society for Public Health Education

The Council is staffed by the Public Health Foundation and is funded through a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Association of Schools of Public Health.

For more information about the Council, please visit www.phf.org/link/index.htm or contact the Public Health Foundation at 202-218-4400.

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Prologue

Development
The Council developed the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals to help strengthen public health workforce development. This list builds on ten years of work on this subject by the Council and numerous other organizations and individuals in public health academic and practice settings. The list has been cross-walked with the Essential Public Health Services to ensure that the competencies help build the skills necessary for assuring the delivery of or providing these services.

The list has also been reviewed by more than 1,000 public health professionals during a public comment period. The Council received feedback from reviewers via several mechanisms, including e-mail, focus groups, sessions at various conferences, and the Competencies website. The comments from public health professionals in a broad array of disciplines and practice settings have led to this consensus set of core competencies for guiding public health workforce development efforts.

Uses
These competencies are designed to foster workforce development by helping academic institutions and training providers to develop curricula and course content, and evaluate public health education and training programs. The competencies are also used in practice settings as a framework for hiring and evaluating staff and assessing organization-wide gaps in skills and knowledge. Academic institutions and health departments nationwide—as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Public Health Preparedness, and the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Public Health Training Centers—have used the Core Competencies. The Core Competencies have also been included in objectives and recommendations set forth in Healthy People 2010 and the Institute of Medicine’s reports Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? Educating Public Health Professionals for the 21st Century and The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century.

The Core Competencies have also served as the foundation for the development of more-specific sets of competencies that can be used in conjunction with the Core Competencies. The Core Competencies were crafted to transcend the boundaries of specific disciplines and to help unify the public health profession. Therefore, this list of crosscutting competencies may not contain competencies that are specific to particular disciplines within the field. Moreover, because this list is meant to represent the core, it may not contain many skills that are necessary for the performance of certain jobs within certain practice settings. Individuals, employers, educators, and trainers should use this list as a starting point for developing a modified list of competencies that matches their needs. Whenever possible, as users integrate the Core Competencies into discipline specific sets, consistency of domain names should be maintained.

The competencies are divided into the following eight domains:

• Analytic/Assessment Skills
• Policy Development/Program Planning Skills
• Communication Skills
• Cultural Competency Skills
• Community Dimensions of Practice Skills
• Basic Public Health Sciences Skills
• Financial Planning and Management Skills
• Leadership and Systems Thinking Skills

Skills and knowledge are listed first within each domain, followed by important attitudes relevant to the practice of public health. While attitudes may be more difficult to measure, they should be included in curriculum and content development efforts.

This effort of the Council focuses on core competencies as they apply to three job categories: front line staff, senior level staff, and supervisory and management staff. Definitions for these job categories are available here. The Council acknowledges that these job categories are defined broadly and the lines of distinction between them are not always clear. However, the categories are meant to be flexible and adaptable to the evolving profession. While core competencies for clerical or support staff (e.g., clerks; dental, lab, or nursing assistants; data entry staff; etc.) are also important, they are beyond the scope of the current effort. The Council also recognizes that, in many public health settings, job category is often related to educational background. However, educational level and years of experience are not included in the job category definitions because they do not necessarily dictate function within an organization.

Levels of skill have been assigned to each competency based on the job category of the public health professional. The three skill levels are aware, knowledgeable, and advanced (formerly used the term “proficient”). The skill levels for each competency by job category represent the majority opinion of individuals who reviewed the list on the website. When two consecutive skill levels for a particular competency received nearly the same number of votes—a difference of 10% or less—from reviewers, the Council reports both skill levels to indicate that the actual level of skill falls along the continuum between the two. Although skill levels do vary by job category, all public health professionals should at least be aware of these Core Competencies.

Period of Adoption
The Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice adopted the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals on April 11, 2001 for a three-year period. The Council determined that it would review the list for potential revision by April 2004. However, feedback from the field in early 2004 indicated that more examples of competencies use and a rationale for making changes were needed before a revision should be considered. The Council will continue to monitor the use of the Core Competencies and try to determine if sufficient evidence exists to require a revision of the list.

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Definitions

Core Competency:

The individual skills desirable for the delivery of Essential Public Health Services. Intended levels of mastery, and therefore learning objectives for workers within each competency, will differ depending upon their backgrounds and job duties.

Job Cateogries

Front Line Staff:

Individuals who carry out the bulk of day-to-day tasks (e.g. sanitarians, counselors, nurses and other clinicians, investigators, lab technicians, health educators). Responsibilities may include basic data collection and analysis, fieldwork, program planning, outreach activities, programmatic support, and other organizational tasks.

Senior Level Staff:

Individuals with a specialized staff function but not serving as managers (e.g. epidemiologists, attorneys, biostatisticians, health planners, health policy analysts). They have increased technical knowledge of principles in areas such as epidemiology, program planning and evaluation, data collection, budget development, grant writing, etc. and may be responsible for coordination and/or oversight of pieces of projects or programs.

Supervisory and Management Staff:

Individuals responsible for major programs or functions of an organization, with staff who report to them. Increased skills can be expected in program development, program implementation, program evaluation, community relations, writing, public speaking, managing timelines and work plans, presenting arguments and recommendations on policy issues.

Skill Levels

Aware:

Basic level of mastery of the competency. Individuals may be able to identify the concept or skill but have limited ability to perform the skill.

Knowledgeable:

Intermediate level of mastery of the competency. Individuals are able to apply and describe the skill.

Advanced:

Advanced level of mastery of the competency. Individuals are able to synthesize, critique or teach the skill. (Formerly used "proficient.")

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