Growing multidisciplinary training needs of the public health workforce

Uncertainty around the education and training structures and funding required to maintain and enhance multidisciplinary working practice.

Multidisciplinary and cross disciplinary education and training can promote better awareness of public health concepts and successfully deliver population health programmes. Currently, (outside of consultant training programmes) there are concerns as to who has the capacity to train for a wide range of functions in various public health domains at practitioner, senior and advanced practitioner levels. There are ideas in accreditation, registration, levels of delivery, duration of education and training, where and how education and training are delivered, and, importantly, who will bear the costs. Such ideas, imperative for workforce planning, will need to be resolved in the new public health environment by engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including practitioners, advanced practitioners and specialists, to gain perspectives on ways forward.

Sources or references

• Developing a multi-disciplinary public health specialist workforce: training implications of current UK policy (2002) Evans, D, Dowling S, J. Epidemiological Health, 2002 Oct 56(10)
• McPherson K. For and against: Public health does not need to be led by doctors. For. BMJ. 2001 Jun 30; 322 (7302)
• Scally G. Public health medicine in a new era. Soc Sci Med. 1996
• UK Faculty of Public Health

Some of the information in this section is provided by stakeholders and expert groups, and does not necessarily represent the views of the CfWI.