Consensus on the competencies required for public health nutrition workforce development in Europe – the JobNut project

Abstract

Objective: To assess and develop consensus among a European panel of public health nutrition stakeholders regarding the competencies required for effective public health nutrition practice and the level of proficiency required in different practice contexts. Design: A modified Delphi study involving three rounds of questionnaires. Setting: European Union. Subjects: Public health nutrition workforce development stakeholders, including academics, practitioners and employers, from twenty European countries. Results: A total of fifty-two expert panellists (84 % of an initial panel of sixty-two Delphi participants) completed all three rounds of the Delphi study. The panellists rated the importance of fifty-seven competency units possibly required of a public health nutritionist to effectively practice (Essential competencies). Twentynine of the fifty-seven competency units (51 %) met the consensus criteria ($66?7 % agreement) at the second round of the Delphi survey, with the highest agreement for competencies clustered within the Nutrition science, Professional, Analytical and Public health services competency domains. Ratings of the level of competencies required for different levels in the workforce indicated that for a public health nutrition specialist, advanced-level competency was required across almost all the twenty-nine competencies rated as essential. There were limited differences in rating responses between academics and employer panellists throughout the Delphi study. Conclusions: Competencies identified as essential can be used to review current public health nutrition practices and provide the basis for curriculum design and re-development, continuing education and workforce quality assurance systems in Europe. These are all important tools for systematic and strategic workforce development. Keywords Public health nutrition Workforce development Competencies Consensus Delphi methodThe capacity of the public health workforce is a key contributor to the ability of communities to address public health nutrition issues (1) . Workforce capacity is influenced by a range of determinants including the quality of workforce preparation and continuing professional development, workforce size, organisation and support (2) . With respect to workforce preparation and continuing professional development, competency-based approaches have been widely embraced recently as a process central to the professionalisation of public health and its related disciplinary groups (3)(4)(5)(6)(7) , including public health nutrition (7) .In the European context, workforce development that encourages optimal workforce mobility and collaboration in research and practice requires the development of comparably competent practitioners who are capable of developing and undertaking effective population-based strategies to meet nutrition and public health objectives. This has been the position of workforce development scholars for at least the last decade (8,9) . Competency standards provide the architecture for workforce developmen...

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