Enhancing the capacity of the nation?s public health workforce to advance health equity - the association of schools and programs of public health (aspph) is poised to respond to CDC's call to…

Enhancing the capacity of the nation?s public health workforce to advance health equity - the association of schools and programs of public health (aspph) is poised to respond to CDC's call to "build competencies and enhance the capacity of the nation's public health workforce to reduce health disparities and advance health equity" through components a and b of a FY 2022 "strengthening the population & public health workforce pipeline" cooperative agreement. Aspph represents 137 graduate schools and programs of public health (s/PPH) with current or pending accreditation by the nation's council on education for public health (ceph). The covid-19 pandemic has revealed obstacles impacting the ability of the nation's public health system to respond to emergencies and has highlighted longstanding challenges facing the public health workforce. There is a clear need to modernize our public health data infrastructure, focus on health disparities, and address social determinants of health. The pandemic also revealed strengths of the public health system, including the critical role of the governmental public health (GPH) workforce. Aspph, and our members, have joined with our colleagues at the federal, state, tribal, local, and territorial (stlt) levels to help bridge gaps and provide essential trainings during the covid-19 crisis. Aspph serves as a leader and national convener for s/PPH, educating and training the next generation of diverse and inclusive professionals and leaders prepared to meet emerging public health challenges, advance health equity and social justice, and generate evidence-based knowledge to drive excellence and innovation in public health practice. Aspph recognizes that a robust and diverse public health workforce trained in the core functions of governmental public health, including leadership and data science, is paramount to reducing health disparities and advancing health equity. Aspph established the aspph center for public health workforce development in early 2022 to apply and disseminate best practices in the education and training of diverse public health learners and engage the current and future public health workforce across disciplines and sectors to address health system challenges and resolve critical population health challenges. With this cooperative agreement, aspph will strengthen the public health workforce of today and tomorrow to apply leadership and data science training to identify, assess, and respond to public health needs, improve public health outcomes, reduce health disparities, and advance health equity by increasing the competencies of the current and future public health workforce in leadership and data science and by working to increase the diversity of the public health workforce pipeline. Key components of this work are to: - engage academic public health, members of the public health workforce, and the communities in which they serve to establish a leadership and data science training agenda and implementation plan. - provide more opportunities for high quality applied learning experiences, workforce training opportunities, and continuing education opportunities between academic public health and governmental public health jurisdictions with a focus on lower-resourced health jurisdictions. - develop and disseminate resources for the current public health workforce to help fill gaps in existing content for leadership and data science training. - continue the longstanding aspph/CDC public health fellowship program. Outcomes of this work include: (1) increased access to comprehensive didactic leadership and data science training opportunities that meet the needs of learners at all levels to help fill gaps in existing content; (2) increased access to high quality applied learning experiences between s/PPH and GPH jurisdictions with a focus on lower-resourced health jurisdictions; (3) fellows gain applied knowledge in governmental public health and population health; and (4) FE