PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCES AND CONTENT OF THE UNDEGRADUATE PUBLIC HEALTH PROGRAMMES IN EUROPE

Abstract

Sufficient number of competent public health professionals are an important prerequisit for the normalfunctioning of the health systems. At present, the number and type of institutions carrying out undergraduate educationand training in public health varies broadly both in Europe and the USA. There is a lack of clarity on how much therequirements for professional public health competencies are covered by the content of undergraduate public healthprograms in Europe. Purpose: To analyse the content of Bachelor Public Health programmes in Europe, in relation tothe requirements for professional competences introduced by ASPHER in 2014 (Association of Schools of PublicHealth in the European Region). Methods: An online questionnaire was developed and distributed via the Internetplatform Google Forms to 214 universities in Europe. The electronic survey included 50 questions clarifyingavailability of study subjects and topics from 7 main areas of competences proposed by ASPHER: Methods in PublicHealth; Population Health and Determinants; Health Policy; Economics and Management; Health Education andHealth Promotion; Interdisciplinary subjects; Practical Training and Others. Similar information was extracted from theeducational documentation accessible from the web pages of 74 higher educational institutions offering undergraduateprograms in public health from 19 European countries. Results: Information for 59 undergraduate public healthprogrammes was retrieved, 45 from west and 14 from east Europe. Subjects related to “Health Inequalities”, “GlobalHealth”, “Information Technologies”, “Ageing”, “Leadership”, “Genomics” are available in less than 50% of theprogrammes in both west and east Europe. There is a clear difference between west and east programmes in someaspects. In the central focus of training in PH in Bulgaria and the countries from Eastern Europe are the specializedprevention disciplines related to hygiene and epidemiology of communicable diseases and a considerable number ofclinical disciplines. The latter are less presented in the training in Western European programmes, which are moreoriented towards health policy and management. Conclusions: There is a significant variation in the content and as aresult the professional competences provided by the undergraduate PH education programmes in Europe. Both westand east European undergraduate PH programmes fail to address adequately the present global challenges in the areastarting with existing health inequalities. Recommendation: There is an urgent need for regulation of public health as abasic regulated health profession in the European Union, which will entail standardization of the content of thebachelor education and will stimulate the recognition and the importance of the profession across Europe as well.