8.M. Round table: The Why, the How, and the Tensions in the response of European SPHs to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract With its repeated waves of infection and a high death toll in countries all over the world, the COVID-19 pandemic places the public health (PH) discipline at the centre of public attention. Thus, it is a crucial ethical requirement to activate all available resources of PH knowledge and skills, nationally as well as internationally, in response to the pandemic. Universities, Schools and Departments of Public Health (SPHs) hold important resources in terms of theoretical and practical competences. In order that PH professionals will have the necessary competences to deliver the Essential Public Health Operations (EPHOs) to combat health threats, e.g. pandemics, the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) has developed competency systems and lists for the PH workforce as well as for the academic knowledge and skills foundation of PH in its broadest sense. The membership of ASPHER thus represents a substantial resource of PH knowledge and skills, enabling the SPHs to play a critical role also in the COVID-19 pandemic. To develop the knowledge and skills resources further, ASPHER however set up a COVID-19 Task Force to describe and analyse the many-sided dynamic challenges, which the pandemic presents to society and thus to the role of PH institutions and professionals. Under normal circumstances, the central roles of the SPHs are teaching and research and, to a more limited extent, health communication to the public and giving advice to...
Source: The European Journal of Public Health - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research