Skip to main content
Download PDF

Editorial: Education for a Public Health Workforce in Europe and Globally

Public Health Reviews volume 33, pages 7–15 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

During the past century, public health has made major contributions to longer and better lives, through prevention and control of communicable and noncommunicable diseases and injuries, not only in industrialized nations but also worldwide. Public health, delivered through the organized efforts of society, benefitted from sanitation, food safety, new and improved vaccines, better nutrition, and successful health promotion that addressed many of the major causes of morbidity and mortality and an increasingly diverse array of public health challenges. One of the core functions of public health is to ensure an adequately organized, trained and supported workforce. In this issue, we address the educational context for training a multidisciplinary workforce to meet the needs of a public health community facing rapidly evolving responsibilities and challenges. Our objective is to promote discussion about effective policies on the public health workforce by governments, universities, schools, civil society, and the international health community, coupled with recognition of the centrality of this topic for their funding and development agendas. This is especially vital during a period of economic distress when there are cuts in public funding, even as threats to health are expanding as a consequence of increasingly global forces. The reviews and case reports in this issue show the diversity of experiences and identify some common themes for future development. Sharing the experience of different parts of the world in training public health workers will, we believe, promote analytic and constructive thinking and practices about curricula, competencies, bachelor’s level and postgraduate education, research needs, the role of government, professional and nongovernmental organizations, international accreditation and other important issues. This offers a basis for the coming decades to foster academic and practical environments that can provide a trained public health professional workforce in each country in Europe, and ultimately, globally.

References

  1. Tulchinsky TH, Epstein L, Normand C (Editors). Proceedings of the International Conference on Developing New Schools of Public Health, Jerusalem, 17-21 March, 2002. Public Health Reviews. 2002;30:1–392.

    Google Scholar 

  2. McKee M. Foreward. Public Health Reviews. 2002;30:5–10.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Beaglehole R, Dal Poz MR. Public health workforce: challenges and policy issues. Hum Resour Health. 2003;1:4.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. World Health Organization. World Health Report 2006: Human Resources for Health. WHO, Geneva. 2006.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  5. Frenk J, Chen L, Bhutta Z, Cohen J, Crisp N, Evans T, et al. Health professionals for a new century: transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world. Lancet. 2010;376(9756): 1923–1958.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Henderson DA. Preface: On the eradication of smallpox and a public health career. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:19–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Paccaud F, Weihofen A, Nocera S. Public health education in Europe: old and new challenges. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:66–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Cole K, Sim F, Hogan H. The evolution of public health education and training in the United Kingdom. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:87–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Adany R, Villerusa A, Bislimovska J, Kulzhanov M. Public health education in Central and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:105–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Noack H. Governance and capacity building in German and Austrian public health since the 1950s. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:264–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Rosenstock L, Helsing K, Rimer BK. Public health education in the United States: then and now. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:39–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Mass’ R, Moloughney B. New era for schools of public health in Canada. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:277–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Aceijas C, Foster N. Public health capacity building in times of austerity: a case study from the University of East London. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:240–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Kuiper T, Meijer A, Moust J. Innovation in public health teaching: the Maastricht experience. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:300–314.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Pino P, Solimano G. The School of Public Health at the University of Chile: origins, evolution, and perspectives. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:315–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Magaña-Valladares L, Cooper K. The National Institute of Public Health: shaping public policy to advance population health in Mexico. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:331–338.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Popova S, Georgieva L, Koleva Y. Development of public health education in Bulgaria. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:323–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Neumark Y, Manor O, Berry EM. Promoting public health workforce training for developing and transitional countries: fifty-year experience of the Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:251–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Birt CA, Foldspang A. The developing role of systems of competences in public health education and practice. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:134–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Calhoun G, Wrobel, CA, Finnegan JR. Current state in U.S. public health competency-based graduate education. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:148–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Overall JW, Goodman J. The role of non-governmental organizations in development of schools of public health: an example from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:168–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Ness RB. Public health research Priorities for the Future. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:225–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Schneider D, Evering-Watley M, Walke H, Bloland PB. Training the global public health workforce through applied epidemiology training programs: CDC’s experience, 1951–2011. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:190–203.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Kimberly JR. Preparing leaders in public health for success in a flatter, more distributed and collaborative world. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:289–299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Bangdiwala S, Tucker J, Zodpey S, Griffiths S, Li LM, Reddy KS, Cohen M, Gross M, Sharma K, Tang JL. Public health education in India and China: history, opportunities, and challenges. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:204–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. McKee M, Hurst L, Aldridge RW, Raine R, Mindell JS, Wolfe I, Holland WW. Public health in England: an option for the way forward? Lancet. 2011;378: 536–539.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Gotsadze G, Chikovani I, Goguadze K, Balabanova D, McKee M. Reforming sanitary epidemiological service in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: an exploratory study. BMC Health Serv Res. 2010;10:440.

    Google Scholar 

  28. McKee M, Suhrcke M. Investing in health: a contribution to achievement of the Lisbon Agenda. European Review. 2010;18: 9–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Murray LR. Future of public health workforce lies in better education, training: perspectives of the president of APHA. The Nation’s Health. 2011;41:3.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Otok R, Levin I, Sitko S, Flahault A. European Accreditation of Public Health Education. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:30–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Braun School of Public Health, Hebrew University-Hadassah, Ein Karem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Theodore H. Tulchinsky MD MPH (Deputy Editor, Public Health Reviews)

  2. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

    Martin McKee CBE MD DSc

Authors
  1. Theodore H. Tulchinsky MD MPH
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Martin McKee CBE MD DSc
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Theodore H. Tulchinsky MD MPH.

Additional information

Recommended Citation: Tulchinsky TH, McKee M. Education for a Public Health Workforce in Europe and Globally. Public Health Reviews. 2011;33:7–15.

Rights and permissions

Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tulchinsky, T.H., McKee, M. Editorial: Education for a Public Health Workforce in Europe and Globally. Public Health Rev 33, 7–15 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03391617

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03391617

Key Words

Public Health Reviews

ISSN: 2107-6952

Contact us