A Review of Public Health Training Needs Assessment Approaches: Opportunities to Move Forward

Self Cite

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Regional preferences and approaches to assessing needs vary dramatically. Some RPHTC prefer a qualitative approach; others adapt their tools to meet the various needs of local partners or disciplines 11,12. These differences have long been discussed in workforce research and were part of the genesis of PH WINS 22.…”

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confidence: 99%

Regional Training Needs Assessment: A First Look at High-Priority Training Needs Across the United States by Region

McKeever

Leider

Alford

et al. 2019

Self Cite

“…Our results aligned with prior literature, which details financial and budgetary management as having the highest training gaps. 4,9 Policy development domain contained questions such as understanding governmental structure, identifying areas for policy development, analyzing policy options, and interacting with policy makers. Given 64.9% of the survey respondents in our sample held frontline or entry level positions, it is possible that they are not heavily involved with policy development since, it requires understanding of government structure and experience in assessing policies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1,2 Equivalently, the 2018 Accountable Community of Health (ACH) Participant Survey, conducted by Center for Community Health and Evaluation (CCHE), identifies that effective communication and quality improvement in communities need further improvements. 3,4 Nonetheless, many public health practitioners do not receive proper trainings due to time constraints, limited resources, and unavailability of training opportunities in their community. 5,6 These barriers are particularly impactful in local health departments in rural areas, where funding is limited and the demand for public health services is high.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Training Gaps Among Public Health Practitioners in Washington State

Sainkhuu¹,

Cunha‐Cruz

Rogers³

et al. 2020

Identifying the training gaps in public health competencies and strategic skills is a first step in the development of effective workforce development plans and strategies. The purpose of this study was to identify training gaps in public health competencies and strategic skills among local, tribal, and State public health employees in Washington State using an online cross-sectional survey from 2016. Domains where participants reported to have low training confidence and high training needs were coded as "training gaps". We investigated the associations between training gaps and demographic and work characteristics for two competencies and two skills with the highest training gaps. The largest training gaps among public health competencies were in financial planning (Mean: 37.87, Standard Deviation (SD):34.94) and policy development (Mean: 34.13, SD: 35.37). For strategic skills, the largest training gaps were in quality improvement (Mean: 37.02, SD: 39.44) and developing effective communication campaign (Mean: 30.54, SD: 34.70). In multiple regression analyses, women had lower training gaps in financial planning

“…The results from this assessment point to the need for a specific and targeted national workforce training agenda, as the top areas of training needs remain consistent regardless of supervisory status and regardless of setting as presented elsewhere in this supplement. While there are a number of training needs assessments in the field that are specialized in nature, limited funds for training and the clear alignment of training needs across all segments of the workforce suggest that efficiencies of scale should be leveraged to align and identify common direction for a national training agenda for these strategic skills, as echoed by other research in the field 19…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top Training Needs of the Governmental Public Health Workforce

Bogaert

Castrucci

Gould

et al. 2019

Context: Workforce development in governmental public health has historically focused on discipline-specific skills. However, as the field of public health has evolved, crosscutting skills have become critical. The 2017 fielding of the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) provides a national benchmark for gaps in crosscutting skills in state and local health departments. Objective: The purpose of this article is to identify top areas of training needs in the governmental public health workforce using data from PH WINS 2017. Design: PH WINS participants in state and local health departments were surveyed in fall 2017 using a Web-based platform. Balanced repeated replication weights were used to account for complex sample design. Setting: Forty-seven state health agencies, 26 large city health departments, and a nationally representative sample of mid-to-large local health departments. Participants: Permanently employed governmental public health staff. Main Outcome Measures: Training needs were determined by combining self-reported skill importance and proficiency. Skills reported to be of high importance, and low levels of proficiency were coded as training needs. Focus area gaps were defined as having a training need in at least one skill in the focus area. Results: The largest area of training need, regardless of supervisory status, was in budgeting and financial management (55%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 53-56), with a large gap also identified in systems and strategic thinking (49%; 95% CI, 47-50). There was some variation by supervisory status, with training needs for nonsupervisors in change management and in developing a vision for a healthy community for management. Conclusions: The PH WINS training needs assessment provides the first nationally representative data on training needs for the state and local health department workforce. Across state and local health departments, there are common critical training needs essential for the current and future practice of public health.