Good quality management of the health system demands a critical mass of health professionals with sound technical knowledge. The education that produces a workforce of appropriate size and skills is often a challenge in the delivery of quality health services. Incidentally, health professionals’ education has not kept pace with the new emerging challenges. Recent globalization of health has further led to international migration of health professionals, thereby leading to cross-border recognition of health workers with an appropriate skill-mix, knowledge, and competence. The Lancet Commission Report of 2010 highlighted the need to develop a common strategy at a global level for postgraduate medical, nursing, and public health education that reaches beyond the confines of national borders and the silos of individual professions. This vision would require a series of instructional and institutional reforms, which should be guided by two proposed outcomes: transformative learning and interdependence in education. The purpose of this Research Topic is to increase the shared understanding of the current status of the education of the health workforce around the globe, particularly those working in the public health sector. With this foundation, further research and evaluation studies can then be done with a perspective that addresses global workforce issues impacting access, prevention, and care.

Bioterrorism, drug-resistant disease, transmission of disease by global travel . . . there's no shortage of challenges facing America's public health officials. Men and women preparing to enter the field require state-of-the-art training to meet these increasing threats to the public health. But are the programs they rely on provide the high caliber professional training they require? Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? provides an overview of the past, present, and future of public health education, assessing its readiness to provide the training and education needed to prepare men and women to face 21st century challenges. Advocating an ecological approach to public health, the Institute of Medicine examines the role of public health schools and degree-granting programs, medical schools, nursing schools, and government agencies, as well as other institutions that foster public health education and leadership. Specific recommendations address the content of public health education, qualifications for faculty, availability of supervised practice, opportunities for cross-disciplinary research and education, cooperation with government agencies, and government funding for education. Eight areas of critical importance to public health education in the 21st century are examined in depth: informatics, genomics, communication, cultural competence, community-based participatory research, global health, policy and law, and public health ethics. The book also includes a discussion of the policy implications of its ecological framework.

The World Health Organization defines the social determinants of health as "the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life." These forces and systems include economic policies, development agendas, cultural and social norms, social policies, and political systems. In an era of pronounced human migration, changing demographics, and growing financial gaps between rich and poor, a fundamental understanding of how the conditions and circumstances in which individuals and populations exist affect mental and physical health is imperative. Educating health professionals about the social determinants of health generates awareness among those professionals about the potential root causes of ill health and the importance of addressing them in and with communities, contributing to more effective strategies for improving health and health care for underserved individuals, communities, and populations. Recently, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to develop a high-level framework for such health professional education. A Framework for Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health also puts forth a conceptual model for the framework's use with the goal of helping stakeholder groups envision ways in which organizations, education, and communities can come together to address health inequalities.

Drawing on the author's experiences ranging from the world's most advanced hospitals to revolutionary new approaches in India and Africa, this book will challenge everything from the role of healthcare in the world economy to the training and leadership of the medical profession and the role of women in the workforce.

"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.

This book presents best practices for ethical and safe international health elective experiences for trainees and the educational competencies and evaluation techniques that make them valuable. It includes commentaries, discussions and descriptions of new global health education guidelines, reviews of the literature, as well as research. Uniquely, it will include ground-breaking research on perspectives of partners in the Global South whose voices are often unheard, student perspectives and critical discussions of the historical foundations and power dynamics inherent in international medical work. Global Health Experiential Education is a timely book that will be of interest to academic directors of global health programmes and anyone involved in training and international exchanges across North America.

A roadmap for how we can rebuild America's working class by transforming workforce education and training. The American dream promised that if you worked hard, you could move up, with well-paying working-class jobs providing a gateway to an ever-growing middle class. Today, however, we have increasing inequality, not economic convergence. Technological advances are putting quality jobs out of reach for workers who lack the proper skills and training. In Workforce Education, William Bonvillian and Sanjay Sarma offer a roadmap for rebuilding America's working class. They argue that we need to train more workers more quickly, and they describe innovative methods of workforce education that are being developed across the country.