PHETICE - Public Health Training in the Context of an Enlarging Europe

This three year project was co-funded by the European Commission's Public Health Programme and built upon the work undertaken during the EUMAHP projects. PHETICE aimed to utilise the synergies of five existing Public Health training programmes in Europe to develop further public health training and education in an enlarging Europe. The project was coordinated by the Public Health Department at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. 

Project objectives

The overall aim of this project is to make a contribution to the health of European citizens through supporting and combining the contributions from different professional public health groups. The large range of initiatives taken separately by different groups is more an expression of the new health panorama developing in Europe than the lack of will to co-operate.

The PHETICE project had a number of key objectives:

  • To contribute to a European strategy in public health training, building on experiences and investments from existing training programmes, and identifying commonalities and synergies;

  • To identify and integrate educational institutions from acceding and candidate countries into existing European Training programmes in public health;

  • To develop a common understanding of the core competencies of professionals within public health specialist areas, through networking and collaboration with relevant projects and institutions;

  • To develop European professional and academic standards to enable uniform quality processes and joint degrees on all levels;

  • To further develop methods for public health training and integrate areas of inequality, health monitoring and best practice;

  • To publish and disseminate guidelines for public health specialist training in Europe;

  • To increase access to evidence-based education and information for European public health workers and specialists and thereby European citizens.

Project impact

Each of the five professional programmes involved in this application to a large extent works independently and cross-cutting efforts are rare or non-existent. The work done so far in the different programmes gives an extraordinary basis for developing joint goals, structures and activities between programmes and improving the quality of the training. This gives a possibility to better achieve the goal of educating Public Health professionals for the improvement of the health of European citizens. The group in this application can offer a platform for such a development.

To achieve the benefits realised by these opportunities, we have developed a work plan that cuts across our professional training. We believe that developing general educational strategies such as ‘training the trainers’ as well as drawing up professional and academic standards will lead to a strong development of professions willing to help in improving the Health of the populations in EU. Closely related is the development of training on the monitoring of health indicators. If the goal of the EU regarding monitoring health indicators can have any impact, there must be suitably trained professionals available.

We further intend to develop databases of educational materials and resources as well as programme linkages for the development of curriculum core modules. The work must be done while identifying European professionals already involved in similar efforts, particularly in the acceding countries, and identifying schools that are close to initiating modern forms of Public Health training.

PHETICE-guide-cover

Download the guide here

Download the final report here

Research team 

Caroline Hall

Dr Nigel Sherriff

Glynis Flood

Outputs

Hall, C. (in press) Developing a competent global health promotion workforce: pedagogy and practice, commissioned paper by the Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand, in press at www.hauora.co.nz/

Davies, J.K., Sherriff, N.S., Hall, C., and Flood, G.F. (2008) Public Health Education and Training in an Enlarging Europe (PHETICE): Work package 4: professional and academic standards/pedagogical strategies, Brighton, University of Brighton.

Presentations

Hall, C., Sherriff, N.S., and Davies, J.K. (2008). Building Public Health Capacity in an Enlarging Europe: the PHETICE Project. Paper presented at the 8th International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) European Conference, Turin, Italy.

Hall, C (2006) Building Public Health Capacity in an Enlarging Europe, Oral paper presented at the 5th Nordic Health Promotion Research Conference, Esbjerg, Denmark.

Partners

Karolinska Institutet

University of Mainz

Vrije University

ASPHER