title: Public health workforce taxonomy.
abstract: Thoroughly characterizing and continuously monitoring the public health workforce is necessary for ensuring capacity to deliver public health services. A prerequisite for this is to develop a standardized methodology for classifying public health workers, permitting valid comparisons across agencies and over time, which does not exist for the public health workforce. An expert working group, all of whom are authors on this paper, was convened during 2012-2014 to develop a public health workforce taxonomy. The purpose of the taxonomy is to facilitate the systematic characterization of all public health workers while delineating a set of minimum data elements to be used in workforce surveys. The taxonomy will improve the comparability across surveys, assist with estimating duplicate counting of workers, provide a framework for describing the size and composition of the workforce, and address other challenges to workforce enumeration. The taxonomy consists of 12 axes, with each axis describing a key characteristic of public health workers. Within each axis are multiple categories, and sometimes subcategories, that further define that worker characteristic. The workforce taxonomy axes are occupation, workplace setting, employer, education, licensure, certification, job tasks, program area, public health specialization area, funding source, condition of employment, and demographics. The taxonomy is not intended to serve as a replacement for occupational classifications but rather is a tool for systematically categorizing worker characteristics. The taxonomy will continue to evolve as organizations implement it and recommend ways to improve this tool for more accurate workforce data collection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Center of Excellence in Public Health Workforce Studies University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Department of Health Management and Policy University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Electronic address: mboulton@umich.edu.
authors.forename: Matthew L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Boulton
authors.affiliation: Center of Excellence in Public Health Workforce Studies University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Department of Health Management and Policy University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
authors.forename: Angela J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Beck
authors.affiliation: Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Fátima
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Coronado
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Informatics, Complexity and Organizational Study, Center for Health Policy, School of Nursing, Columbia University, New York.
authors.forename: Jacqueline A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Merrill
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management and Policy University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
authors.forename: Charles P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.affiliation: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (formerly), Washington, District of Columbia.
authors.forename: George D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Stamas
authors.affiliation: National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, Health Resources and Services Administration, Rockville, Maryland.
authors.forename: Nadra
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tyus
authors.affiliation: Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, Arlington, Virginia.
authors.forename: Katie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sellers
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Workforce Studies, University of Albany-State University of New York, Albany, New York.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.affiliation: the Public Health Leadership Program, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health (Tilson), Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
authors.forename: Hugh H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Tilson
authors.affiliation: National Association of County and City Health Officials, Washington, District of Columbia.
authors.forename: Carolyn J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Leep
mesh_terms: D057191:Capacity Building; D002568:Certification / Q000145:classification; D003710:Demography / Q000145:classification; D040381:Education, Public Health Professional / Q000145:classification; D004651:Employment / Q000145:classification; D006280:Health Workforce / Q000145:classification*; D006801:Humans; D008004:Licensure / Q000145:classification; D009790:Occupations / Q000145:classification; D011634:Public Health; D014481:United States; D037041:United States Government Agencies