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Background
The Public Health Workforce Development Plan (PH WDP) Project was established by the Public Health Directorate of the Ministry of Health in 2003/2004. Head Strategic Ltd was engaged to manage the project. The need for background information and expert input was recognised, to provide a foundation for a plan with a ten year outlook, and provision was made to commission reports as needed.
This Reports Review considers each of the 37 reports available at the time, and makes explicit the links between the evidence in the reports and the approaches outlined in the PH WDP. Its purposes are to:
- document the evidence base used to develop the PH WDP
- provide a reference tool for those interested in public health workforce development
- to assist those responsible for implementing the initiatives arising from the PH WDP.
Method
The report is organised by sections, listing reports in date order. The sections and number of reports are:
Section title Number of reportsPublic health workforce issues and contextual information 10Maori public health workforce 5Pacific public health workforce 3Education, leadership and public health careers 6Health protection workforce 2Primary health care and public health 4Emergency management workforce issues 2PH WDP project management 5Total 37
Discussion
Not unexpectedly, the individual reports contain significantly more detail than the PH WDP.
Overall, they provide the evidence base to inform the PH WDP goals, objectives and actions.
The PH WDP makes reference to many of the reports, and includes a bibliography detailing the scope of each the reports, and how they have been incorporated into the PH WDP.
Some of the reports are descriptive, and do not contain recommendations relevant to workforce development. These provide background or baseline information, and will continue to be important at the implementation stages.
Work is under way by Te Rau Matatini to consider Maori public health workforce development in detail. The PH WDP incorporates high level approaches that will sit alongside and integrate with the Maori strategy.
Table 2 in the PH WDP outlines the major public health workforce development issues, and the approach the PH WDP takes to address those issues. These are well aligned with the findings in the research reports.
The PH WDP project will continue to commission research and reports as needed. With the publication of the plan, these will increasingly focus on specific implementation issues, as well as on evaluation of the impact of initiatives resulting from the PH WDP.
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