In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists suggested approaches, including upskilling and recruitment/hiring, to strengthen workforce capacity in public health data science. This article estimates the number of recently graduated data scientists who might be eligible for and potentially hirable into government public health jobs…
High turnover rates in the public health workforce pose ongoing challenges to maintain essential services and institutional knowledge. Recent studies indicate that job dissatisfaction, burnout, and structural barriers have intensified following the COVID-19 pandemic. While prior studies have identified key predictors of turnover intention, the potential of machine learning to improve predictive accuracy and guide…
Governmental public health has been saddled with underinvestment and stagnant wages, making recruitment into the sector challenging. Although governmental public health pays reasonably well overall, it is also generally viewed as uncompetitive with the healthcare and tech sectors, which often capture recent graduates and recent hires. The growing concern of student loan debt, coupled with…
Governmental public health workers that are 35 years of age or younger have been shown to experience lower retention rates than older workers. Salaries are often a factor in retention, but because health departments sometimes face restrictions in improving salaries, health departments might explore offering nontraditional benefits to attract and retain workers. This article analyzes…
Healthcare and behavioral health professionals employed by local, state, and federal governments are essential to maintaining public health infrastructure, ensuring access to care, and responding to emergencies. Despite their importance, limited research has examined how recent policy, budgetary, and labor market changes are influencing their employment stability and retention within government sectors. This article uses…
Disease intervention specialists (DISs) play a crucial role in the public health workforce by conducting essential tasks such as contact tracing, contact interviews, and providing referrals for services to control disease spread. Despite the importance of DISs, research is lacking on the job tasks that they perform and the role that they serve in public…
Public health nurses (PHNs) are one of the largest public health occupation groups, bringing important expertise to the activities of public health; however, their roles and distribution differ across the country. The local-level need for and role of PHNs differ across the United States based on factors such as community characteristics, health needs, and public…
Public health nurses (PHNs) are a distinct specialty within the field of nursing and a core occupation within the public health workforce. However, PHNs do not have a distinct Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code to distinguish them from other nurses. Without a SOC code, federal government data, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)…
The Public Health Workforce Calculator was developed early in the COVID-19 pandemic to help public health agencies estimate the staffing needed to fully implement the Foundational Public Health Services (FPHS). However, the data used to develop the algorithm for the Workforce Calculator was from pre-pandemic time periods. This article examines whether the Workforce Calculator remains…
Throughout the COVID-19 response and into the current recovery period, demand for new public health staff has been relatively high. Increased funding and need has created an opportunity to expand the public health workforce to levels not seen over the past 15 years. More students are receiving public health degrees than ever before. Given that…
