Brown School, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, Missouri (Dr Harris); Division of Health Policy and Management, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Dr Leider); and Region V Public Health Training Center, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, Michigan (Ms Kulik and Dr Beck).
J Public Health Manag Pract. 2022;28(1):E256-E263. doi: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001274.
The public health system faces major challenges in 2020, including an aging workforce, reductions in funding, and 2 simultaneous major threats to public health-the coronavirus pandemic and racial injustice. To effectively harness promising new technologies and address these and other public health challenges ahead, public health professionals must be trained on evidence-based practices for protecting and improving public health. This project sought to understand the network of health departments and organizations that provide training in order to inform strategic efforts to fill training gaps and improve access to training for local health departments (LHDs), thereby strengthening the public health system.
DESIGN/SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: We conducted a Web-based survey of 501 LHDs in the 6 states constituting Region V of the Department of Health & Human Services. The survey focused on the training relationship between LHDs and state and national organizations that provide public health training, allowing for a social network analysis. We used data visualization and descriptive statistics to examine the network.
Of 290 participating health departments (58% response rate), 248 had monthly or more frequent contact with at least 1 organization for the purpose of training. Altogether, the 248 LHDs were connected to 47 state-level organizations and 10 national-level organizations. In 5 of 6 states, more LHDs were connected to the state health department for training than to any other organization type. Universities, national nonprofits, and national membership organizations provided training to the fewest LHDs. Local health department characteristics did not have a clear relationship with its number of training connections.
State health departments may benefit from the support of universities, national nonprofits, and national membership organizations by partnering to offer training or by recommending training from these organizations to LHDs. Additional qualitative information from local and state health departments would be useful to determine the best strategies for universities, national nonprofits, and national membership organizations to participate in training local practitioners to improve LHD capacity.
2020 年，公共卫生系统面临重大挑战，包括劳动力老龄化、资金减少，以及同时对公共卫生构成重大威胁的两大问题——冠状病毒大流行和种族不公正。为了有效利用有前途的新技术，并解决这些和其他公共卫生挑战，公共卫生专业人员必须接受有关保护和改善公共卫生的循证实践培训。本项目旨在了解提供培训的卫生部门和组织网络，以便为填补培训差距和改善地方卫生部门（LHD）培训机会的战略努力提供信息，从而加强公共卫生系统。
设计/设置/参与者：我们对构成卫生与公众服务部第五区的 6 个州的 501 个 LHD 进行了一项基于网络的调查。该调查侧重于 LHD 与提供公共卫生培训的州和国家组织之间的培训关系，允许进行社会网络分析。我们使用数据可视化和描述性统计来检查网络。
在 290 个参与的卫生部门（58%的回应率）中，有 248 个部门每月或更频繁地与至少 1 个组织联系，目的是进行培训。总的来说，这 248 个 LHD 与 47 个州级组织和 10 个国家级组织有联系。在 6 个州中的 5 个州，LHD 与州卫生部门的培训联系比与任何其他组织类型的培训联系都多。大学、国家非营利组织和国家会员组织向最少的 LHD 提供培训。地方卫生部门的特征与其培训联系的数量没有明显的关系。
州卫生部门可以通过与大学、国家非营利组织和国家会员组织合作提供培训，或向 LHD 推荐这些组织的培训，从大学、国家非营利组织和国家会员组织获得支持。来自地方和州卫生部门的额外定性信息将有助于确定大学、国家非营利组织和国家会员组织参与培训地方从业者以提高 LHD 能力的最佳策略。
