Competencies for Public Health Informaticians now available
The definition and skills of those working in the public health informatics discipline have not been thoroughly described, until now. The variety of training resources developed in recent years were developed in relative isolation without consensus as to specific competencies that public health informaticians should have. A previous group, under the auspices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the University of Washington, had defined informatics competencies for the general public health professional. This effort, however, did not define competencies for the person with a core identity and expertise in informatics. To address this issue, the CDC formed a working group, consisting of public health professionals, informaticians, and educators from a number of different organizations, to define Competencies for Public Health Informaticians. The set of competencies developed by this second working group was validated by external review both by experts and public comment. These informatics competencies should provide a useful starting point to develop learning resources for public health informatics professionals at both the entry and senior level. Proficiency in these Competencies will directly assist today's public health professionals to leverage the power of modern information technology in the science and practice of public health.
The Competencies for Public Health Informaticians can be found on the CDC website: http://www.cdc.gov/InformaticsCompetencies/
The Competencies for Public Health Informaticians can also be downloaded in .pdf format here: http://cphi.washington.edu/resources/PHICompetencies.pdf.
This work was carried out during 2005-07 with Bryant Karras, MD, as principal investigator and was facilitated by Jac Davies, MS, MPH. The project was convened by Denise Koo, MD, MPH, director of the Career Development Division in the Office of Workforce and Career Development (OWCD) at the CDC. It was supported through an Association of Schools of Public Health - CDC cooperative agreement with the University of Washington's Center for Public Health Informatics (ASPH/CDC Project#S3447-24/24).
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The mission of the Center for Public Health Informatics (CPHI) is to provide an interdisciplinary environment that supports innovative research into information strategies and technologies to improve the health of the public. CPHI is housed in the Department of Health Services in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.
For more information:
Phone: 206.221.7444
Fax: 206.616.5249
email: cphi@u.washington.edu |
