Public Health Competencies [1]

  1. Practice patient-centered and relationship-based care.
    • Provide culturally competent systems to support patient-centered and relationship-based care.
    • Evaluate the delivery of patient-centered and relationship-based care.
    • Describe what is patient-centered and relationship-based care.
  2. Obtain a comprehensive health history which includes mind-body-spirit, nutrition, and the use of conventional, complementary and integrative therapies and disciplines.
    • Provide culturally appropriate settings to obtain an integrative health history.
    • Generate variables that measure public health conditions.
    • Develop patient education materials for informing patients about what is an integrative health history.
  3. Collaborate with individuals and families to develop a personalized plan of care to promote health and well-being which incorporates integrative approaches including lifestyle counseling and the use of mind-body strategies.
    • Incorporate diverse perspectives to support appropriate use of integrative approaches.
    • Use a variety of approaches to disseminate public health information.
    • Communicate the role of integrative health within the overall health care system.
  4. Demonstrate skills utilizing the evidence as it pertains to integrative healthcare.
    • Evaluate the integrity and comparability of data.
    • Evaluate program performance.
    • Incorporate integrative health data into the resolution of scientific, political, ethical and social public health concerns.
  5. Demonstrate knowledge about the major conventional, complementary and integrative health professions.
    • Able to critique the scientific functions of both integrative and conventional health professionals.
    • Modify organizational practices in consideration of integrative and conventional healthcare in response to changes in the health care system.
    • Integrate both integrative and conventional health professionals into the healthcare.
  6. Facilitate behavior change in individuals, families and communities.
    • Contribute to building the scientific base of public health.
    • Retrieve scientific evidence on both integrative and conventional health care from a variety of text and electronic sources.
    • Use behavioral change models to support integrative healthcare professionals.
  7. Work effectively as a member of an interprofessional team.
    • Provide mechanisms to create interprofessional teams.
    • Ensure opportunities for professional development for individuals and teams.
    • Use group process to advance involvement.
  8. Engage in personal behaviors and self-care practices that promote optimal health and wellbeing.
    • Apply basic human relations skills to the management of organizations, motivation of personnel, and resolutions of conflicts.
    • Create policies and procedures that support the practice of self-care.
    • Incorporate government and non-government organizations to develop policies and programs to support the practice of self-care.
  9. Incorporate integrative healthcare into community settings and into the healthcare system at large.
    • Evaluate outcomes of integrative health care in community settings.
    • Establish performance management systems for delivering integrative health care services.
    • Include the use of cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit and cost-utility analysis in programmatic prioritization and decision making.
  10. Incorporate ethical standards of practice into all interactions with individuals, organizations and communities.
    • Write a code of ethics and standards of practice.
    • Identify local and national laws related to the ethical practice of primary health care.
    • Identify steps and procedures that protect the right of privacy.
    • Establish integrative primary health care systems that promote honesty, integrity and accountability.
    • Promote professional development.

[1] Subcompetencies adapted or matched with the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals. The Council on Linkages Between Academic and Public Health Practice.

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