Core Competencies For Public Health

Public health is the way protecting and improving health of a community and families through the implementation and promotion of healthy lifestyle. The aim or goal is to allow the public to have a quality of life by prevent spread of disease or infection, protecting form injury, facilitating aid and many more (Rima, Lipinski,2009). The interventions usually conducted by public health professional are to prevent any form of health related problem happening or recurring by implementing educational programs, designing and recommending policies, and conducting research. Additional duties and responsibilities of public health nurses are to work with communities and/or population as partners to promote health, and also taking leadership to assess assets and needs of the communities in order to propose a solution as partners

The core competencies for public health professionals are designed as starting point for practice and organization to understand, assess and meet training and workforce needs. It reflects characters of public health staff to protect and promote health in the community in many ways and forms. The core competencies are divided into many domains or topics as means of specialty or skills to be focused as part of public health practice and one of them is communication. Communication is form of exchanging information, thoughts, and feeling among individuals or community using speech or other forms. “Public health communication draws from numerous disciplines, including mass and speech communication, health education, marketing, journalism, public relations, psychology, informatics, and epidemiology. Although it is transdisciplinary in nature, the core principles of public health communication are firmly anchored in the central tenets of public