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…
The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system is the federal standard for categorizing occupation data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) gathers data using SOC codes to help with enumeration, wage data, occupational exposures data, and other workforce analyses. However, the data currently presented through programs such as the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)…
Local health departments play a critical role in promoting the overall health and well-being of communities across the country, and influxes of response-related funding and attention make it challenging to build and sustain a consistent and well-trained public health workforce. Local public health is increasingly being asked to do more for growing populations with diverse…
Understaffing is a chronic public health challenge. Ensuring a sustainable public health workforce requires innovative recruitment and retention strategies. Recommended strategies include holistic recruitment efforts in collaboration with community and academic partners, enhanced leadership training, staff compensation reviews, flexible work arrangements, and worker wellbeing initiatives. This article discusses the creation of the “Putting Our People…
The governmental public health workforce, especially in state and local health departments, is significantly short-staffed, and labor market competition for public health graduates and others with high-demand skills can make recruitment and retention challenging. While some research shows that public health workers generally earn less than those in similar jobs in other sectors, federal data…
With the number of public health nurses (PHN) declining nationwide, it’s crucial to understand where PHNs work, what they do, and how to address workforce development needs. However, estimates of the size of the PHN workforce vary depending on data source, and current workforce survey methods often categorize PHNs based on work setting, which does…
