Thousands of Public Health Workers are Needed to Accommodate Shortage

Liz Perry for Leaders in Healthcare – Feb. 28, 2008

The Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) released startling statistics this week – more than 250,000 additional public health workers are needed by 2020. The shortage crisis is attributed to insufficient numbers of public health physicians, nurses, epidemiologists, educators, and administrators. Retirement is expected to spike dramatically, further complicating the situation. In fact, 23 percent of the nearly 110,000 public workers in the field today will become eligible to retire in the next five years.

Leading public health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Public Health Association, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Institute of Medicine agreed that the current workforce is inadequate to meet the needs of the US and global populations.

In order to address these significant shortages, ASPH is calling for an increased federal investment in public health education and training and coordination of a centralized effort to adequately understand current and future workforce needs. Increased recruitment, training and fellowship programs, financial aid assistance and expanded graduate-level opportunities are expected to be among the most urgent needs for averting this looming crisis. According to the analysis, Schools of Public Health will have to graduate three times as many public health workers over the next 12 years in order to meet national healthcare needs in 2020. Therefore, students pursuing degrees in public health are practically guaranteed positions directly after graduation.