Public health care practitioners and organizations are a part of community readiness for, response to, and recovery from emergencies and disasters of all kinds. Although response to health threats, particularly communicable disease outbreaks, have long been a part of public health practice, 2 advancements in preparedness, including the integration of public health into the broader community emergency response system and the clarification of exactly what knowledge, skills, and attitudes a public health professional brings to the response, have been made since 2001. This article presents the newly affirmed core competencies to be attained and maintained by the majority of the public health workforce and discusses some of the many ways in which these competencies influence practice, research, and education.
This article describes the newly affirmed core competencies to be attained and maintained by the majority of the public health workforce and discusses some of the many ways in which these competencies influence practice, research, and education.
Faculty of Health Sciences, Flinders University School of Nursing & Midwifery, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia (Dr Gebbie); Association of Schools of Public Health, Washington, DC (Mss Weist and Biesiadecki and Mr McElligott); Department of Health Education and Behavioral Science, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Public Health, Piscataway (Dr Gotsch); Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine and Pharmacy, Rootstown (Dr Keck), Ohio; and Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine–Wichita (Dr Ablah).
Correspondence: Elizabeth M. Weist, MA, MPH, CPH, Association of Schools of Public Health, 1900 M St, NW, Suite 710, Washington, DC 20036 (eweist@asph.org).
The authors are grateful for the partnership with Drs Andrea Young and Robyn Sobelson, who worked closely with the Association of Schools of Public Health on this project through the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the competency model development process.
This project was supported under a cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the Association of Schools of Public Health grant U36/CCU300430-28.
Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the US government.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
