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Summary of Report
A survey of the public health workforce in organisations that contract with the Ministry of Health in New Zealand was conducted in 2003/2004. As part of this survey health promotion employees of the Cancer Society were also surveyed. This report is based on the responses from 26 employees and the key findings are summarised below. The rest of the report also includes comparison with the main Public Health employee survey.
Profile of Cancer Society public health employees
The Cancer Society health promotion related employees are almost all women and nearly half are in the age band 40 to 49 years. This workforce comprises a smaller proportion of Maori and Pacific personnel than the wider public health workforce. Many work part-time (58%).
Public health workforce issues being worked on Melanoma prevention, Nutrition, Physical activity and Tobacco control are the main programme areas.
What public health workforce issues are considered most important?
The most mentioned important workforce issues relate to management of staff and under-staffing or lack of skilled staff.
Experience, satisfaction and retention of employees
Most Cancer Society public health employees have worked in their current role for up to five years (73%). The equivalent results for working in public health, as distinct from their current role, are 42% up to five years, and a further 27% (accumulating to 69%) up to ten years.
Those surveyed reported moderately high levels of satisfaction with their current public health
roles, with 29% "very satisfied" and a further 46% "satisfied" (accumulates to 75%). Those surveyed value similar aspects of their work to other public health employees, the most mentioned being the interesting areas of work their current jobs offer. Heavy workload is the reason most often mentioned to consider leaving their current roles. Expectations to remain working in public health are at moderate levels.
Qualifications and training
Most employees (92%) have some tertiary qualifications, with 65% having degrees. The largely consider that at least some tertiary qualifications are necessary for their positions. One in eight of this workforce is currently engaged in study towards tertiary qualifications. Subsidy by the employer is the factor that employees most often say would increase their likelihood of doing formal tertiary qualifications related to public health.
Personal and work commitments are the main barriers employees identify to both tertiary and non-tertiary training. Conferences and health promotion workshops are the forms of non-tertiary training most often received. Computer training, management training and training in research and evaluation are the forms of non-tertiary training most wanted.
Those surveyed see themselves as needing "some" up-skilling more than "a lot", with Advocacy, Epidemiology and Te Reo being the most mentioned areas where up-skilling is sought.
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