Higher Education for Public Health Leadership

Abstract

The primary health care approach to public health stresses recognition of economic, political, and social determinants of health. In practice, briefly trained community health workers provide people with education and health care, but they require sound supervision. Such tasks of leadership require higher education. This demands more schools of public health of independent status, as well as stronger departments of community medicine within schools of medicine. Independent schools of public health throughout the world are much stronger than preventive medicine departments in medical schools, as measured by full-time faculty, scope of teaching and research, and candidates enrolled. To train properly for leadership, such independent schools in the developing world should be multiplied by 12 times to meet the needs. Leadership requires basic preparation in the full scope of public health knowledge, along with skills of effective management.