Building the public health workforce for the 21st century : Édifier une main-d'oeuvre en santé publique pour le 21ième siècle

Building the Public Health Workforce for the 21st Century A Pan-Canadian Framework for Public Health Human Resources Planning The Joint Task Group on Public Health Human Resources Advisory Committee on Health Delivery and Human Resources Advisory Committee on Population Health and Health Security October 2005 The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessaril [...] Risks Associated with the Status Quo Because of the current approach to public health HR planning and the overall lack of investment in public health systems over the past 20 to 30 years, the public health sector is experiencing: a high proportion of vacant public health positions; a significant proportion of practitioners working in public health who do not have specialized training in public [...] The skills and competencies that public health workers require in the 21st century and the services they provide will be based on an ongoing assessment of the population’s public health needs and the way public health services are delivered (i.e., service delivery models). [...] The education system will work with the provincial/territorial Ministries of Health and the public health sector to prepare an interprofessional public health workforce with the knowledge, skills and flexibility to respond to changing needs. [...] Medium-term: • Define pan-Canadian public health programs and services 1.3 Develop consistent Short-term: information on the public • Establish a 21st century definition of public health for the purposes health workforce of collecting data on the public health workforce (to be refined after 1.2, the basket of public health services, is developed) • Develop a list of professions with definitions to