National workforce capacity to implement the essential public health functions including a focus on emergency preparedness and response

Overview

Achieving and sustaining progress towards global health goals such as universal health coverage and health security requires a health and care workforce that can deliver the full range of essential public health functions, including emergency preparedness and response. Implementation of the emergency public health functions is the most cost-effective, comprehensive, and sustainable way to enhance the health of populations and individuals and to reduce the burden of disease.
Health and care workforce development has typically focused on licensed occupations that are well defined under internationally recognized classifications, such as nurses, pharmacists and physicians. The same focus is required to systematically measure and build the diverse range of occupations and specialists that constitute the public health and emergency workforce and to identify gaps between their education and development, the needs of the populations they serve, and the organizations that employ them.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other ongoing and future challenges such as climate change, rising noncommunicable disease burden, antimicrobial resistance and economic inflation, Member States face an unprecedented moment in human history. As countries recover and turn attention to investments in health systems to meet such challenges, now is an opportune time to bolster the public health workforce, including those personnel charged with emergency preparedness and response functions.
This roadmap is the result of joint efforts across leading public health and emergency response experts, organizations and associations. The collaboration process highlighted the importance of engaging policymakers, politicians, practitioners and professional associations; the need to focus on developing competencies and skills as well as mapping and measuring the diverse occupations involved in delivery of the essential public health functions; identifying and understanding key stakeholders as well as defining roles from the outset; and contextualizing to regional, national and subnational settings.