Please note: This website has recently moved from www.health.gov to odphp.health.gov. www.health.gov is now the official website of ODPHP’s parent organization, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH). Please update your bookmarks for easy access to all our resources. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Increase the proportion of state and territorial public health agencies that use core competencies in continuing education — PHI‑06 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  ASTHO Profile of State and Territorial Public Health (ASTHO Profile), Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)

Baseline: 60.3 percent of state and territorial public health agencies incorporated Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals into developing training plans by 2019

Target: 65.1 percent

Numerator
Number of public health agencies responding that Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals were used in developing training plans.
Denominator
Number of agencies responding to this item in the ASTHO Profile Survey. The ASTHO Profile survey is sent to the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and 8 US territories and freely associated states.
Target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
Target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.10.
1
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were not available for this objective. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.1. This method was used because the Healthy People 2030 Workgroup Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) viewed this as an ambitious yet achievable target. The SMEs based this on knowledge of workforce development activity in the field and the anticipated challenge in further expanding these efforts to the remaining state public health agencies (while at the same time retaining coverage of those that are already using the Core Competencies).

Methodology

Questions used to obtain the national baseline data

(For additional information, please visit the data source page linked above.)

From the 2019 ASTHO Profile of State and Territorial Public Health:

Numerator:
Indicate the use of various public health competencies in the course of managing your agency personnel: Core competencies for public health professionals (Council on Linkages)
  1. Not familiar with
  2. Familiar with but have not used
  3. Conducting performance evaluations
  4. Developing training plans
  5. Preparing job descriptions
  6. Other use

Methodology notes

The Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals (Core Competencies) are a consensus set of skills for the broad practice of public health, as defined by the 10 Essential Public Health Services. Developed by the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice (Council on Linkages), the Core Competencies reflect foundational skills desirable for professionals engaging in the practice, education, and research of public health. These competencies are organized into eight domains, reflecting skill areas within public health, and three tiers, representing career stages for public health professionals. States and territories that responded that they use core competencies for public health professionals in "Developing training plans" were counted in the numerator. The ASTHO Profile Survey is sent to the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and 8 US territories and freely associated states.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Modified, which includes core objectives that are continuing from HP2020 but underwent a change in measurement.
Changes between HP2020 and HP2030
This objective differs from the related Healthy People 2020 objective PHI-2.2 in that PHI-2.2 tracked only states, while this objective tracks state and territorial agencies that use Core Competencies in continuing education for personnel.
Revision History
Revised. 

In 2022, the objective statement was revised from "Increase the proportion of state public health agencies that use Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals in continuing education for personnel" to "Increase the proportion of state and territorial public health agencies that use Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals in continuing education for personnel." Due to the the change in measurement for the objective to track state and territorial agencies, the baseline was revised from 72.0% in 2016 to 60.3% in 2019. The target was revised from 76.4% to 65.1% using the original target setting method.

1. Effect size h=0.1 was chosen to correspond with 10% improvement from a baseline of 50%.