Workforce Development Opportunities

Region V Public Health Training Center courses: Region V seeks to advance the skills of the current and future public health workforce to improve population health outcomes. Region V provides a number of free, self-paced training sessions online to develop public health workforce core competencies in health equity, sustaining partnerships, evaluation, the intersection between public health and health care, and more. Featured trainings include:

• Foundations of public health practice
• Implicit bias in public health practice
• Applying systems thinking to public health

Find more sessions at Region V Public Health Training Center: Training gateway, and sign up for the Region V newsletter at Region V: Enewsletter.

MDH Center for Public Health Practice webinars and resources: MDH staff have curated the list of tools, resources, and webinars at Resource Library for Advancing Health Equity in Public Health: Equip staff to help you equip your staff to take action on the root causes of health inequities.

Student field placement funding: This funding from the Minnesota Public Health Training Center helps support student workers at health departments, community-based organizations, and health organizations. 

PHN residency for nurses new to public health: This residency provides new nurses in public health settings with the basic elements needed for a successful transition to public health nursing practice.

Public health workforce assessment: Local public health and higher education in Minnesota, 2019 (PDF), August 2019. MDH engaged with local public health and Minnesota colleges and universities to identify current and future public health workforce needs and challenges in Minnesota, and understand how to create new pathways for public health careers. Next steps include meeting with the planning team throughout 2020, and developing an action plan to address priority areas identified by the planning team. The planning team includes representatives from MDH, local public health, higher education institutions, and other partners (AMC, LPHA, MPHA, Henry Street Consortium, and Central Region Education and Practice Group).

The public health nurse workforce in Minnesota: Making informed decisions about hiring public health nurses and other professionals (PDF), January 2020. Public health nurses are an integral part of governmental public health work in Minnesota. Hiring and retaining public health nurses, particularly in local health departments, is challenging for a number of reasons. This report seeks to distinguish positions that must be filled by a public health nurse from those that may be filled by other professionals like social workers, health educators, and community health workers.

How is public health currently staffed in Minnesota? Visit Past data: LPH Act annual reporting, and look for the most recent year's summary of workforce data.

Making connections with public health colleagues: Find a local health department, post a job or event to the CHS Mailbag, and update your information in the CHB contact database.

Health equity in public health practice: Health equity is achieved when every person has the opportunity to attain their health potential, and no one is unjustly kept from achieving this potential. The work to advance health equity is in direct line with the history of local health departments acting as a key force with their communities to shape the conditions for population health.