Is Public Health Education and Training Adequately Responding (or Not) to Emerging Priorities?

Recent work by the World Federation of Public Health Associations’ Professional Education Training (WFPHA PET) working group has identified five emerging areas (OneHealth, Systems Thinking, Public Health Ethics, Political Engagement, and Disaster and Emergency Health) within the discipline of public health that practitioners need to have a basic understanding to prepare themselves for the future of the field. However, these areas are not necessarily included in public health competency sets or curricula globally. The WFPHA PET held a fireside chat of experts to discuss the main issues faced in integrating these specialties into public health education, training, and practice. Common threads seen across the panel included: (1) The current pace of change in these areas of public health; (2) ‘Nimble’ ways of identifying emerging (wicked) problems; (3) The need for innovative ways of teaching; (4) The need for sophisticated public health-related communication systems; (5) Understanding current political imperatives. To enhance the capacity of the public health workforce, it is essential to update course materials and integrate new and innovative materials and teaching strategies while retaining core content. This is complex, but necessary to further strengthen the workforce. The COVID-19 pandemic provided us with a unique experience and opportunity to reflect on how and what we teach, with the first step to bolster public health curricula and training to address current competency gaps in emerging priority areas to strengthen the public health workforce.