Maximizing the impact of public health training

A competent workforce is critical to the provision of public health services, and ongoing engagement in training opportunities throughout one's career can help build the competence to succeed. Despite its importance, resources for professional development, such as time and money, are often in short supply. A number of strategies hold potential for improving the effectiveness of public health training and helping to maximize the return on investment of personal and organizational resources and the potential benefits derived by both the public health professional engaging in the training and the organization. During this session, strategies related to assessment, motivation, design, delivery, and evaluation of training will be shared, along with methods for applying the strategies described. The strategies and methods highlighted were developed by experts in training and evaluation through a yearlong collaboration and are based on a review of scholarly and grey literature and expert opinion. This process produced a checklist-type tool to assist public health educators and organizations with implementing the proposed enhancements into their training efforts. Freely available through the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice, the tool details strategies and methods for improving and measuring the impact of training and provides supporting reference materials and practical tools and examples.