Burke Emily M, Fox Jordan A, Tager Kaitlin, McDowell Sara, Phelps Fawn, Koh Howard
Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, Washington, DC, United States.
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States.
Front Public Health. 2025 Aug 7;13:1630046. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1630046. eCollection 2025.
Strong and effective leadership is essential for the success of public health systems. It serves as the driving force that inspires, guides, and empowers individuals to improve the health of their communities and strengthen their organizations. Leadership is not merely supplementary but a core element in tackling the increasingly complex challenges facing public health today. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant weaknesses in our systems for emergency preparedness and response, highlighting just how critical capable leadership is within governmental public health. These challenges are magnified by persistent workforce issues, including knowledge gaps, limited development opportunities, and concerns around long-term sustainability. Further complicating the landscape are rising levels of political polarization and incidents of harassment directed at public health professionals. In response to these pressures and a growing wave of workforce attrition, there is now a heightened national focus on developing the next generation of public health leaders. This development must be intentional and structured, relying on well-designed, competency-based approaches rather than informal or inconsistent methods. Public health leaders must be equipped with the skills to navigate the evolving demands of modern health systems. In 2022, the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) convened an expert panel to develop a national leadership training agenda tailored to the governmental public health workforce. The panel consisted of 15 academic and practice leaders in the United States. Between 2022 and 2024, the panel met regularly to define the essential attributes of public health leadership and determine effective strategies for cultivating them through education and capacity-building efforts. The result of this collaborative effort is the ASPPH Public Health Leadership Competency Mapping and Training Agenda: a foundational framework designed to strengthen capabilities across current and future governmental public health professionals. This article presents that framework, marking an important step toward building a more resilient, competent, and adaptive public health workforce.
强大而有效的领导力对于公共卫生系统的成功至关重要。它是激励、指导和赋能个人改善社区健康并加强组织的驱动力。领导力不仅是补充，更是应对当今公共卫生日益复杂挑战的核心要素。新冠疫情暴露了我们应急准备和响应系统的重大弱点，凸显了政府公共卫生领域有能力的领导力是多么关键。持续的劳动力问题使这些挑战更加严峻，包括知识差距、发展机会有限以及对长期可持续性的担忧。政治两极分化加剧以及针对公共卫生专业人员的骚扰事件使情况更加复杂。为应对这些压力和日益增加的劳动力流失浪潮，现在全国更加关注培养下一代公共卫生领导者。这种发展必须是有计划和有组织的，依靠精心设计的、基于能力的方法，而不是非正式或不一致的方法。公共卫生领导者必须具备应对现代卫生系统不断变化需求的技能。2022年，公共卫生学校和项目协会（ASPPH）召集了一个专家小组，制定了一份针对政府公共卫生劳动力的国家领导力培训议程。该小组由美国15位学术和实践领导者组成。在2022年至2024年期间，该小组定期开会，确定公共卫生领导力的基本属性，并确定通过教育和能力建设努力培养这些属性的有效策略。这项合作努力的成果是ASPPH公共卫生领导力能力映射与培训议程：一个旨在加强当前和未来政府公共卫生专业人员能力的基础框架。本文介绍了该框架，标志着朝着建设更具韧性、能力更强和适应性更强的公共卫生劳动力迈出了重要一步。
