ASPHER Core Curriculum Programme: ASPHER Core Curriculum for Public Health

This first edition of the ASPHER Core Curriculum for Public Health has its origins in the innovative work of the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) over two decades on core competencies for public health professionals. Beginning in 2006 led by Professor Anders Foldspang, from 2008 joined by Dr. Christopher Birt, and in 2018 also joined by ASPHER Director, Dr. Robert Otok, a total of five editions of "ASPHER’s European List of Core Competences for the Public Health Professional" were published up to 2018, each one reflecting changes in the public health landscape of the time. This was followed in 2020 by the WHO- ASPHER Competency Framework for Public Health Professionals in Europe led by Professor Kasia Czabanoskwa. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, ASPHER was commissioned by the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) to develop an updated Competency Framework for Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (published 2022), the scientific lead for which was Professor Mary Codd. With the increasing complexity of our time, Public Health is being shaped and reshaped by a myriad of interrelated factors. Climate change, environmental degradation and natural disasters; humanitarian and public health crises in war-torn regions with resultant vulnerable and migrant populations; food and water insecurity; new and emerging infectious diseases; have all contributed to a constantly changing landscape for public health. This ‘new normal’ calls for re- definition of competencies among the public health workforce, and renewed attention to public health education and training. ASPHER’s mission of ‘improving and protecting the public health by strengthening education and training of public health professionals for both practice and research’ is a call to action on the education and training of public health professionals. Building on the previous work of ASPHER, and that of many other organisations in recent years, this work defines a core curriculum for Public Health to support of the attainment of core competencies by public health professionals. In a modified Delphi-like ‘bottoms-up’ approach, a curricular content survey of ASPHER-member Schools and Institutes of Public Health to ascertain public health programme content and delivery was carried out. Responses were received from 60 Schools with over 500 notifications of areas of interest and expertise relevant to public health. These were collated by Subject Area into curricular concept maps, from which themes within Subject Areas were derived and curricular elements (topics) within themes were identified.