“ Discipline Specific” Competencies in Epidemiology: a progress report.

1. “Discipline Specific” Competencies in Epidemiology:a progress report. Presentation to APHEO Bondy, Cole, and Johnson December 9, 2005

2. Ensuring a common understanding of terms. • Knowledge • Skills • Attitude • Competency • Performance

3. Ensuring a common understanding of terms. • Knowledge “theoretical and practical understanding of a subject” • Skills “practiced ability” • Attitude “way of thinking or settled opinion” • Competency “adequately qualified or capable” • Performance - ability to do the job

4. Ensuring a common understanding of terms. • Framing of objectives uses specific verbs: Bloom’s taxonomy

5. Point of departure • OPHA core competencies documents & Reports by Brent Moloughney Bottom line: • Main framework for public health core competencies has been set. • Basic core competences for public health workers as a whole have been set.

6. 5 core functions of Public Health • Population Health Assessment • Health Surveillance • Health Promotion • Disease and Injury Prevention • Health Protection

7. 7 Domains of Competencies • Core Public Health Sciences • Analysis and Assessment • Policy Development and Program Planning • Collaboration and Partnership • Communication • Socio-cultural Competencies • Leadership and Systems Approaches

8. Matrix of functions and domains

9. Health Unit Functions And Roles As a Unit.

10. Epidemiologist’s Functions And Roles Within the Unit.

11. Other 3 main data sources • Burns, DL, Public Health Epidemiology and Core Competencies: a literature review. January 13, 2005 • CDC/CSTE, CDC/CSTE Applied Epidemiology Competencies, Preface Document and Tier 2 Competencies(Draft for comment) May 25, 2005 • Nevis Consulting Group Study; Innovations in Education for Public Health, August 2005.

12. Role of the “U of T Consultants” • Organizing the field work • Reporting back to APHEO steering cmte with systematically collected data • Keeping out of the content as much as we are able • At a later date, rejoin public discussion re supporting Epis in their roles.

13. Steps in ‘consultation’ • Compilation of background materials • Climate of much soul-searching on competencies in Public Health • Semi-structured interviews • With key informants re P.H. Epi roles • To establish competency cues for structured survey of APHEO members • Web-assisted survey of all APHEO members • Report back to APHEO steering cmte • Facilitate discussion and revision phases

14. Key Informants • A list of colleagues was assembled by the APHEO steering committee • Current or former P.H.Epis • MOH and Federal gov’t Public Health staff • A few academics who work/have worked in close collaboration with P.H.Epis based in Health Units • Selected for personal awareness of requirements, pressures, strengths, needs, interests of P.H.Epis

15. Interview content • Structured around the 5 core P.H. functions and general • “…what do you think are the most important competencies for a public health epidemiologist...” • Cues: • …critical to their role in [each function] • …used every day… • …what Epis bring to PH team • …that distinguish Epi from others (PH staff; other Epis)

16. Interviewer • Kim Berkovitz, PhD. • Qualitative researcher • Not an Epi or academic Epi but “around” public health structures and epi people • Recently completed another competencies project (psychologists) • Structured task (list of competencies to ask about), but couldn’t resist observations

17. 13 interviews, in November • Very compliant, interested group • About 45-60 minutes per interview • Lots of ‘concrete’ competencies, several wonderful quotes • Groupings of competencies from elsewhere (e.g., CanMed) well suited • Transcripts (verbatim but anon.) coming

18. A few observations • Very interested! Benefit to PH Epis to shape their defined core competencies • Comp’s/skills fell across ALL PH functions • Three cross-cutting ‘clusters’ • Resource intelligence (e.g., data) • Methods and interpretation • Communications • Desire to speak of “core” v. “specialized” within PH Epi roles

19. Immediate next steps • Parse specific ‘competency’ mentions out to finalize APHEO member survey • With advice of APHEO steering cmte, adjust ‘shape’ and content of survey; incorporate material

20. A survey of APHEO members

21. Objective • For each competency: • All APHEO members to be asked • Agree-disagree about it as a ‘core’ element for all P.H. Epis • ? Qre. to segregate specialty from core functions ? • ? Other ‘adjectival’ questions (beyond “is/is not core”) ?

22. Planned segregation of data • APHEO full v. affiliate members • Demographic vars (e.g.,) • Epi-specific degree? • Research-specific degree? • Work setting (urban PHU; Rural PHU; other..)

23. Quantitative report • Back to APHEO steering cmte. • Summarized, but rather unfiltered • Bring some of the Qual and Quant data together. • ‘quant’ survey likely to show consensus points and no-consensus items • Triagulate with qualitative docs to flesh out implications

24. “May I have a copy of the report?”

25. Resource to benefit PH Epis • Ultimately the intellectual property of APHEO, PHAC and greater P.H. communities • “Light of day” by end of fiscal (one hopes) • Internal interpretation and discussion with APHEO • Consultation with broader stake-holder communities

26. What to watch for… • E-mail announcement that web-based survey going on line • Login and ‘id’ will be provided • A few reminder notices • Survey should take ~45 min • Anonymous data collection • Opportunity for open-ended commentary

27. Q & A