Core Competencies in Public Health Informatics

Abstract

What competencies in public health informatics should a public health practitioner possess? What competencies should a public health informatician possess? How can public health provide the educational and skill-building experiences that both public health informaticians and public health practitioners need? These are some of the questions that need to be asked early in the development of this discipline. Defining the core knowledge is necessary for an understanding of what competencies are needed. There are two methods for identifying core knowledge—watching experts doing their jobs, or asking them about what it takes to do their jobs. Because of time and travel constraints, it is difficult to watch informaticians and public health practitioners do their jobs, but asking them is feasible. From the identified knowledge, four domains of public health informatics knowledge that encompass the skills and knowledge public health practitioners and informatics specialists need to possess become apparent. To determine how these skills and this knowledge may be turned into educational interventions for use by public health organizations and academic institutions is a challenge the discipline of public health informatics must face.