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This important research builds on past projects in Australia and internationally that have sought to define and clarify competencies required to work in health promotion. The paper briefly explains the process undertaken in 2005 to update the Australian health promotion competencies as a collaboration of several leading health promotion agencies. The article reports findings from research undertaken in 2001 and 2005 and compares trends in perceptions of health promotion competencies across time. This dialogue among researchers, health promotion academics and practitioners can help to further the impact of competencies research on professional practice in health promotion globally. This project placed a priority on methodology that engaged the health promotion workforce in Australia. A two-stage process was employed including expert consultation with 39 senior health promotion professionals, followed by a modified Delphi process to engage 400 practitioners. Space was allowed for comment on the competencies including suggested word changes, and respondents were also invited to add additional competencies. The research involved a modified Delphi study where participants were invited to rate each competency as "essential", "desirable" or "not relevant", and to suggest changes to wording, as well as additions to the list. Responses were received from 400 practitioners and the results were presented and compared with the 2001 survey results. Results indicate a substantial shift in perceptions about health promotion practice in Australia during the initial years of the 21(st) century.The overall significant changes in perceptions indicate that by 2005 the Australian health promotion workforce had substantially moved away from an individual behaviour-dominated perception of health promotion practice. Increasing recognition was given to competencies that reflect environmental, economic and policy influences on health, and increased recognition that these processes are legitimate and essential components of the health promotion process.

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Projects in Australia and internationally over the past two decades have sought to define and clarify competencies required to work in health promotion. It is now apparent that such competencies are very useful to health promotion practice. However, to date little attempt has been made to describe those uses. More than 200 health promotion practitioners throughout Australia were engaged in workshops to explore and define potential uses of health promotion competencies. The suggestions from these 10 workshops are summarised in eight categories of uses. Agreed health promotion competencies have potential to impact on recruitment, training, employment policy and health promotion practice.

Issue addressed: To identify perceptions of essential competencies by rural and urban-based health promotion practitioners.Methods: Data were collected using two rounds of a Delphi to rank competencies as either not relevant, a specific competency relevant to some but not all health promotion practitioners, a desirable or essential competency. The sample consisted of members of the Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA) and the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) Special Interest Group in health promotion. A snowballing technique was also used to increase rural representation.Results: Two rounds of the Delphi resulted in 207 duplicate responses, 148 (72%) urban and 57 (27%) rural. Rural practitioners were significantly more likely to perceive the skills required to implement health promotion strategies as essential (t=-2.4, p=0.015). Statistically significant competencies in rural areas included media skills, research/evaluation skills and use of information technology. Conclusions:There are some significant variations in the perceived essential competencies required by rural health promotion practitioners.