Public health workforce challenges have become increasingly important in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and broader labor market disruptions. The Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) provides critical national data on governmental public health employees, offering insight into workforce experiences, retention, and organizational needs. This article examines how trends identified in…
Research on the public health workforce has largely focused on governmental health departments, despite public health encompassing a much broader range of occupations and sectors. Adopting a more inclusive definition of the workforce would provide a fuller understanding of who contributes to public health, strengthen cross-sector collaboration, and improve data used for workforce planning and…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is rapidly changing the way Human Resources (HR) professionals perform their jobs. Changes to HR technology in talent acquisition (or recruitment) processes are being implemented across myriad industries. These processes may include the building of job descriptions, candidate sourcing, job application, resume scanning and ranking, and interview planning and scheduling. This…
Recruitment and retention have remained ongoing challenges for the public health workforce for decades. Health departments struggle to attract and retain workers due to a wide range of long-standing barriers, including insufficient funding, unclear public health position advertisements, and protracted hiring processes with complex administrative requirements. Such challenges not only limit the ability to fill…
Although recognition of the importance of rurality in public health has grown, national understanding of the rural local public health workforce remains limited due to gaps in data and analysis. Research has also been complicated by longstanding challenges in defining “rural,” particularly in public health where jurisdictional boundaries vary widely. However, workforce data are becoming…
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…
