Who Will Keep the Public Healthy?: Educating Public Health Professionals for the 21st Century

Rating:
Summary: A valuable text for anyone interested in public health.
Review: This text provides a comprehensive report by the Institute of Medicine of the new recommendations on the future of public health education. The committee was represented from various fields from academia, research, medicine, nursing to law, which provided a broad prospective of the many issues surrounding public health and the challenges its facing in the 21st century such as globalization, bioterrorism and issues related to ethics and the law to name a few. This report provides the reader with an overview of the history and current status of public health education. It provides institutions and organizations that are responsible for the education of public health professionals with specific framework and recommendations on how it can be strengthen, including gaps that need to be addressed. This text highlights the importance of having adequately trained and competent public health professionals for the future and protection of our nation's public health. This reports goes further to recommend that "all medical students receive a basic public health training", but also to incorporate training in public health to other fields such as lawyers who can have influence over policies that can have "profound effect upon the public health" and "the value of instructing future business leaders about the health consequences of their decisions." There is also emphasis on academic and community collaboration, partnership with public health agencies, access to life long learning and transdisciplinary research. This is a timely assessment and report on issues that are critical to the future of public health. I highly suggest reading this text to anyone who has interest in public health.