Health Education Leadership Development: A Conceptual Model and Competency Framework

Abstract

A National Public Health Education Leadership Institute was developed through collaboration among national health education professional organizations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a school of public health. The institute provides health educators in leadership positions throughout the country access to a 15-month integrated and sequential professional leadership development program. This article presents a conceptual model and competency framework for that program. The model contains elements considered critical for design of leadership programs in public health and can be used by both professional development and academic programs to shape their design of leadership curricula.

Competency-Based Impact of a Statewide Public Health Leadership Training Program

“…Given the occupational diversity of the public health workforce, and KPHLI participants in particular, consistent objective measures of competency would be prohibitively difficult to implement within the confines of a training program. In the absence of appro priate objective measures, previous studies of health leadership training needs and impact have accepted self-report instruments as suitable methods of evaluation (Helfand, Cherlin, & Bradley, 2005;Lindley et al, 2005;Saleh et al, 2004;Wright et al, 2003). Future study in this area could address some of the limitations of self-reporting by asking participants to provide a "retrospective rating score" of pretraining skills at the time of posttest and comparing these scores with actual pretest scores to garner a measure of consistency.…”

“…The NLN competency set has been endorsed by its state and regional public health leadership institutional members during the past decade (Wright et al, 2000;Wright et al, 2003). For this assessment, participants indicated their level of confidence that they could perform each competency, choosing from one of four levels on a Likert-type scale ranging from not confident to very confident.…”

“…A wide variety of health fields have already proposed and evaluated competency sets for practitioners (Calhoun et al, 2004;Gebbie et al, 2002;Hoge, Tondora, & Marrelli, 2005;Lindley, Wilson, & Dunn, 2005;O'Carroll & Public Health Informatics Competencies Working Group, 2002;Robertson & Cockley, 2004;White, 2006), and competency development has been identified as a priority research area for public health (Cioffi, Lichtveld, & Tilson, 2004). Competencies have been developed for core public health practice areas (Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice, 2001) as well as public health leadership (Wright et al, 2000;Wright et al, 2003). Such assessments provide a broad basis for gauging individual skill level that is particularly appropriate to the diverse public health workforce.…”

Building Health Promotion Capacity in Developing Countries: Strategies From 60 Years of Experience in the United States

“…PHELI was a yearlong competency-based program focusing on leadership development, specifically for midcareer health education professionals from state and local health departments, departments of education, and universities (Wright et al, 2003).…”

Charting Your Career Path Through Clear Professional Values and Purpose

“…In the same way, a professional purpose statement articulates a vision and scope for one's career, providing focus and clarity about professional direction. Having a sense of mission and the ability to identify, articulate, and model professional values, beliefs, and ethics are considered to be core transformational public health and health education leadership competencies (Wright et al, 2000;Wright et al, 2003). In the context of professional development, this article will focus on the role of professional delivering quality products and services; demonstrating integrity, accountability, and transparency; promoting teamwork and collaboration; embracing diversity; and respecting organizational tradition while encouraging innovation.…”