Developing Evidence-based Population Health Informatics curriculum: Integrating competency based model and job analysis

Abstract

With the rapid pace of technological advancements, public health professions require a core set of informatics skills. The objective of the study is to integrate informatics competencies and job analysis to guide development of an evidence-based curriculum framework and apply it towards creation of a population health informatics program. We conducted content analysis of the Population Health Informatics related job postings in the state of New York between June and July 2019 using the Indeed job board. The search terms included “health informatics” and “population health informatics.” The initial search yielded 496 job postings. After removal of duplicates, inactive postings and that did not include details of the positions’ responsibilities resulted in 306 jobs. Information recorded from the publicly available job postings included job categories, type of hiring organization, educational degree preferred and required, work experience preferred and required, salary information, job type, job location, associated knowledge, skills and expertise and software skills. Most common job titles were characterized as analyst (21%, n=65). More than one-third of the hiring organizations for these jobs were health systems (35%, n=106). Almost 100% (n=291) of the jobs were fulltime. Nearly half of the jobs were based in New York (47%, n=143). Data/statistical analysis (68%, n=207), working in multidisciplinary teams (35%, n=108), and biomedical/clinical experience (30%, n=93) were common skills needed. Structured query language (SQL), Python, and R language were common programming language skills. The proposed framework guides development of a 39-credit fully online population health informatics curriculum in a rapidly changing technological environment.

Beyond the Digital Competencies of Medical Students: Concerns over Integrating Data Science Basics into the Medical Curriculum

“…Worldwide, medical curricula have included interdisciplinary courses on ICT and biostatistics. International boards of experts have issued recommendations and guidelines for such courses and specializations at different levels [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. At our University, since 1992, the medical curriculum has included mandatory courses on medical informatics and biostatistics and we have been trying to align the courses’ syllabi to international standards [ 21 ].…”

Expectations of employers in the United States for entry-level public health job skills with a bachelor’s degree: an analysis of the positions advertised in an online job portal

“…Three job titles related to data analysis (“Public Health Analyst,” “Research Analyst,” and “Data Analyst”) accounted for 24 positions. “Health Informatics: data management and visualization” was listed as a required skill in 19.7% of postings, and 40.55% of postings included “data collection and analysis.” Like climate-related public health, informatics is another rapidly-evolving field of study that demands our attention as we anticipate future public health needs ( 4 , 26 ).…”

“…Indeed.com is a common job portal in the U.S. and was chosen because it is the most trafficked online job portal in the country. Indeed.com aggregates millions of job postings across company career sites, job boards, staffing firms, and other online sources ( 26 ) and provides options for job posting search criteria. We restricted our search terms to “public health,” “last 7 days,” “full-time,” “entry-level,” and/or “bachelor’s degree” for better selection.…”

“…Krasna et al’s ( 8 ) analysis focused specifically on workforce demand for public health graduates at the MPH level and determined that labor market demand outside the public health field may be compounding the shortage of public health workers. Other published studies had a sub-disciplinary focus, such as McLane et al’s ( 12 ) or Joshi et al’s ( 26 ) examination of health informatics employment, which identified the growing need for informatics training in the public health workplace. Our study has uniquely focused on entry-level job postings across public and private workforce sectors in the US, requiring a bachelor’s degree.…”

Landscape Analysis of Public Health Jobs in India to Develop an Evidence-Based Public Health Curriculum

“…Furthermore, to develop the best-tailored curriculum, feedback from students should be obtained. Faculty members who work in academic institutions, research departments, and programs are expected to follow up on the changing requirements and update the content of their curriculum continuously [ 24 ]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw existing inequalities, inequities within and among the countries all over the world, and the struggling health systems.…”