Developing a State-of-the-Art Workforce
The public health workforce is our first line of defense against outbreaks and other health threats.
With this priority, we’re increasing the ability to use next-generation skills for actionable public health insights.
Recruitment: We are working to attract a diverse, qualified public health science workforce.
Training: We are continuing to build the skills of the current and future workforce through team-based programs and career entry fellowships.
Forecasting Future Needs: We are modernizing and expanding the use of public health workforce data.
State and Local Support: We are supporting our state and local partners to build a public health workforce that represents the communities in which they work.
Explore a few of the many projects and activities that are developing a state-of-the-art workforce.
Support for jurisdictions
DMI is developing a public health workforce with the latest skills in data science and informatics to build world class data systems.
- Building the Public Health Workforce offers resources for jurisdictions that support public health workforce development.
Developing state-of-the-art skills
With the development of modern tools comes the need to help people learn how to use them.
- Data Science Upskilling (DSU) is CDC’s team-based, project-driven program that takes a unique “learning by doing” approach to supporting DMI.
- Data Science Team Training (DSTT) is the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists’ on-the-job training program to promote data science upskilling at state, territorial, local, and tribal public health agencies.
- CDC’s Data Academy is a one-stop training source to helps users of all experience levels learn about the agency’s enterprise data analytics and visualization tools.
Learn more about how DMI is developing state-of-the-art skills.
Recruiting diverse, world-class talent
DMI is growing CDC’s data science capacity to make sure we’re ready for the future.
- Subject Matter Expert-Quality Assessment (SME-QA) is an innovative strategy being used by federal agencies to recruit the right talent as fast as possible.
Learn more about how DMI is recruiting diverse, world-class talent.
Preparing for the future
Protecting our nation’s health requires a public health workforce prepared to meet emerging and future challenges.
- Public Health Workforce Development provides a collection of resources from CDC and CDC partners to support efforts to develop, train, and sustain a strong public health workforce.
- Future of Work Initiative is identifying new research solutions, practical approaches, and partnership opportunities to address the future of work for the nation.
By the end of 2022, CDC staff had completed 3,700 training hours in CDC’s new cloud-based, on-demand Data Academy — an 83% increase in training over the previous year.
CDC’s team-based Data Science Upskilling program began its first cohort with 79 unique learners on 18 teams.
The first cohort of Data Science Team Training represented 20 teams and 93 learners from a mix of state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments.
In the first test of the SME-QA hiring process at CDC, 600 applications were received in record time, and the qualified candidates were shared with hiring managers across the agency.