Clinical Prevention Services, British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2024 Sep 9;10:e52798. doi: 10.2196/52798.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted gaps in the public health workforce's capacity to deploy digital technologies while upholding ethical, social justice, and health equity principles. Existing public health competency frameworks have not been updated to reflect the prominent role digital technologies play in contemporary public health, and public health training institutions are seeking to integrate digital technologies in their curricula.
As a first step in a multiphase study exploring recommendations for updates to public health competency frameworks within the Canadian public health context, we conducted a rapid review of literature aiming to identify recommendations for digital competencies, training approaches, and inter- or transdisciplinary partnerships that can enhance public health practitioners' capacity to support the digital transformation of public health.
Following the World Health Organization's (2017) guidelines for rapid reviews, a systematic search was conducted on Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Embase, ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), and Web of Science for peer-reviewed articles. We also searched Google Scholar and various public health agency and public health association websites for gray literature using search terms related to public health, digital health, practice competencies, and training approaches. We included articles with explicit practice competencies and training recommendations related to digital technologies among public health practitioners published between January 2010 and December 2022. We excluded articles describing these concepts in passing or from a solely clinical perspective.
Our search returned 2023 titles and abstracts, of which only 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. We found recommendations for new competencies to enable public health practitioners to appropriately use digital technologies that cut across all existing categories of the core competencies for public health framework of the Public Health Agency of Canada. We also identified a new competency category related to data, data systems management, and governance. Training approaches identified include adapted degree-awarding programs like combined public health and informatics or data science degree programs and ongoing professional certifications with integration of practice-based learning in multi- and interdisciplinary training. Disciplines suggested as important to facilitate practice competency and training recommendations included public health, public health informatics, data, information and computer sciences, biostatistics, health communication, and business.
Despite the growth of digital technologies in public health, recommendations about practice competencies and training approaches necessary to effectively support the digital transformation of public health remain limited in the literature. Where available, evidence suggests the workforce requires new competencies that cut across and extend existing public health competencies, including new competencies related to the use and protection of new digital data sources, alongside facilitating health communication and promotion functions using digital media. Recommendations also emphasize the need for training approaches that focus on interdisciplinarity through adapted degree-awarding public health training programs and ongoing professional development.
COVID-19 大流行凸显了公共卫生劳动力在运用数字技术的同时，坚持道德、社会正义和卫生公平原则的能力方面存在差距。现有的公共卫生能力框架尚未更新，以反映数字技术在当代公共卫生中的突出作用，公共卫生培训机构正寻求将数字技术纳入其课程。
作为在加拿大公共卫生背景下探索更新公共卫生能力框架建议的多阶段研究的第一步，我们对文献进行了快速审查，旨在确定数字能力、培训方法和跨学科或交叉学科合作的建议，以增强公共卫生从业人员支持公共卫生数字化转型的能力。
根据世界卫生组织（2017 年）快速审查指南，在 Ovid MEDLINE、Ovid Embase、ERIC（教育资源信息中心）和 Web of Science 上对同行评议文章进行了系统搜索。我们还使用与公共卫生、数字卫生、实践能力和培训方法相关的搜索词，在 Google Scholar 以及各种公共卫生机构和公共卫生协会网站上搜索灰色文献。我们纳入了 2010 年 1 月至 2022 年 12 月期间发表的明确涉及公共卫生从业者数字技术实践能力和培训建议的文章。我们排除了仅从临床角度描述这些概念或偶然提及这些概念的文章。
我们的搜索返回了 2023 篇标题和摘要，其中只有 12 项研究符合纳入标准。我们发现了一些新的能力建议，以使公共卫生从业人员能够适当地使用数字技术，这些技术跨越了加拿大公共卫生局公共卫生核心能力框架的所有现有类别。我们还确定了一个与数据、数据系统管理和治理相关的新能力类别。确定的培训方法包括适应性学位授予计划，如公共卫生和信息学或数据科学联合学位课程，以及具有多学科和跨学科培训中实践学习整合的持续专业认证。被认为有助于实践能力和培训建议的学科包括公共卫生、公共卫生信息学、数据、信息和计算机科学、生物统计学、健康传播和商业。
尽管数字技术在公共卫生领域的发展迅速，但文献中关于有效支持公共卫生数字化转型所需的实践能力和培训方法的建议仍然有限。在可用的情况下，证据表明劳动力需要新的能力，这些能力跨越并扩展现有的公共卫生能力，包括与使用和保护新的数字数据源相关的新能力，以及通过使用数字媒体促进健康传播和推广功能。建议还强调需要通过适应性的公共卫生培训学位课程和持续的专业发展来关注跨学科的培训方法。
