Abstract
Public health surveillance activities include assessing new risks, analyzing data, and communicating findings to the public. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that expertise in public health surveillance is essential for government response to public health emergencies. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has publicly committed to developing a strategy to improve its surveillance workforce by recruiting and retaining surveillance expertise and addressing workforce capacity issues. PHAC鈥檚 Corporate Data and Surveillance Branch (CDSB) is leading a project to create a comprehensive surveillance workforce strategic plan.
In May 2022, the Surveillance Policy and Planning (SPP) team in CDSB initiated an environmental scan on public health surveillance workforce development. The environmental scan provides the background research to support the development of a strategic plan for building surveillance workforce expertise and human resources capacity at PHAC. The first project reviewed key Canadian reports to identify challenges in the surveillance workforce. The second project was a literature search of workforce development strategies for the public health surveillance workforce in other countries published in academic and grey literature.
The review of Canadian reports yielded important findings about key issues the strategic plan should address. The literature search describes initiatives and best practices for surveillance workforce development that other public health agencies have enacted. The takeaway from the environmental scan is that there are gaps in the surveillance workforce's capacity to plan and respond to public health emergencies. However, PHAC can address the issues using solutions enacted in other jurisdictions.
The environmental scan findings will inform other projects initiated by the SPP team that will contribute to the strategic plan, such as consultations with stakeholders, surveys, and key informant interviews. Overall, the findings create a foundation for designing a strategic plan for surveillance workforce development at PHAC.