Are we clear about the role of “competencies” in the design of graduate public health programs?

Much effort has been expended by public health practitioners and academicians to develop competency-based curricula. The resultant Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals have played a central role in the planning and design of graduate public health education, but competencies are only one small part of a well considered curriculum planning process. While consideration of standards, benchmarks, or competencies inform curriculum planning, they are not sufficient for rendering sound or innovative curriculum. We report on an informal survey of the use of competencies at various academic public health programs and compare those results with our own experiences and with the literature pertaining to curriculum design. Our conclusion is that public health programs may be relying too heavily on competencies and neglecting other important aspects of the planning and design process. Without broader curricular considerations, public health educators risk crafting curricula that do not fully express the values of their respective programs nor meet the needs of their students. If we further rely on these same competencies to “measure” the success of curricula, we may ultimately be “teaching to the test” thus limiting the capacity of our faculty and students to create new paradigms. More emphasis should be placed on (1) identifying the vision and the values of the educational community involved, (2) understanding the needs of students and their future employers, (3) generating curricula based upon educational wisdom, and (4) creating curricular evaluations that use a variety of measures to assess the quality and success of our programs.