Education and training development in public health: the PHETICE Project

Issue: Enlargement of EU reflected in need for mobility of publichealth professionals based on Bologna process in higher education. Need to build, therefore, on well-defined and agreed generic and specialist competencies in publichealth. Description: The PHETICE Project has been funded by the EC (DGSANCO) to build on the experiences and investments from existing European public health training programmes and to identify commonalities and synergies. This presentation will introduce and discuss PHETICE's work that is focused on integrating educational institutions from new Member States and candidate countries into existing European Training programmes in public health. Reference will be made to our efforts to create a common understanding of the core competencies of professionals within public health specialists areas using PHETICE model, European professional and academic standards to enable uniform quality processes and joint degrees, innovative methods for public health training that integrate areas of inequality, health monitoring and bestpractice, guidelines for public health specialist training in Europe and access to evidence-based education and information for European public health workers and specialists. Lessons: Need for consensus building process internationally to agree on the core and specialist functions of public health, and thereby agreed international competencies. Need for European guidelines for educators and trainers to link such competencies to higher education delivery strategies and methods. Conclusion: Ways identified to establish effective capacity-building (infrastructure, resources and training staff) at both national and European levels based on agreed competencies to facilitate unification and strengthening of public health practices.