e·nu·mer·a·tion
/əˌno͞oməˈrāSH(ə)n/
noun
- the action of mentioning a number of things one by one.
- the action of establishing the number of something.
Public Health Workforce Enumeration
- defining a sustainable way to count and interpret the number of public health workers, including the agencies, sectors, and programs where they work and what their job duties are.
Public health has long faced staffing and funding challenges, but many gaps were brought to light during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the unprecedented CDC Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) funding, Colorado is paving the way to better understand the public health workforce statewide. The CDPHE Primary Care Office (PCO) maintains the Colorado Health Systems Directory (CHSD). The CHSD is a robust database of all licensed healthcare clinicians statewide and PCO is expanding the directory to include public health workers.
The public health workforce will be identified by utilizing existing data sources, and job duties will be standardized using a program-level taxonomy based on the Foundational Public Health Services. Having a centralized database of all public health workers statewide is a big step towards enumeration and understanding the public health infrastructure, which will help support workforce development efforts statewide.
tax·on·o·my
/takˈsänəmē/
noun
- a system of classification.
Public Health Taxonomy
- a standardized system for classifying public health workers, allowing comparisons statewide regardless of agency/program structure size, or funding.
The public health workforce is very diverse and thus, difficult to categorize. Though important work has been done over more than two decades in the academic and nongovernmental sectors, there has yet to be a broad consensus formed for categorizing public health workers.
This is a crucial prerequisite for analyzing the workforce according to optimal skill and FTE standards for public health at the local and state levels. Based upon the Foundational Public Health Services (FPHS) and existing taxonomy, the PCO developed a program-level taxonomy process that will be able to standardize public health job duties regardless of agency/program structure, size, or funding.
Utilizing existing data sources and systems to automate the process of identifying those who are part of the public health workforce statewide, coupled with the program-level taxonomy, is necessary to have an in-depth understanding of the ever-changing public health workforce. This process will allow the state of Colorado to maintain an up-to-date dataset of public health workers statewide, including staff who have multiple job duties in various programs and across sectors, giving us critical insight into training needs, help identify shortage areas, support or strengthen policy, and assess gaps in staffing and programming.
Want to help strengthen the public health workforce?
Learn more about how you can help
Many existing data systems house individual-level public health staffing data in Colorado, including but not limited to:
- Financial and accounting systems
- State of Colorado user systems for specific programs
- Public health member organizations
- Public health member organizations
- Public health training center profiles
Much of the data housed in these systems is not being fully utilized and the systems are not integrated. Using the Colorado Health Systems Directory (CHSD) as a central source to integrate all individual-level staff data means that Colorado will have a dataset of all public health workers statewide, which has not been accomplished before.
This process requires complex logic and algorithms on the backend to match, clean, and integrate the individual sources. The more data and variables provided help make the logic and algorithms more precise and produce more reliable data. Any format of data is acceptable, including but not limited to:
- Excel
- CSV
- Word documents
- Google Sheets
Data Security
Data security is our top priority and the CHSD has different security levels depending on the user group. Data is stored in a cloud-based database in compliance with:
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA)
- Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)
- Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FEDRAM)
Contact us
Data stewards or those who have the authority to share individual public health staff data, please email Shanna Wisdom at shanna.wisdom@state.co.us to begin conversations on best practices for data sharing. Virtual and in-person assistance is available to determine the best processes for using and sharing workforce data.
Learn ways you can partner with us to begin utilizing the program-level taxonomy in your work so you can provide feedback and suggestions for how it can be streamlined and strengthened.
Colorado Volunteer Mobilizer (CVM)
- Become a volunteer by visiting the Colorado Volunteer Mobilizer website.
- Volunteers 18 years and older are needed for an effective response to disasters and planned events.
- Volunteers needed include:
- Public health professionals
- Physicians
- Nurses
- Pharmacists
- Respiratory therapists
- EMT/Paramedics
- Behavioral/Mental Health
- Veterinary/Animal Response
Colorado TRAIN (CO.TRAIN) is the most comprehensive catalog of public health training opportunities for public health professionals who serve the citizens of Colorado. Visit the CO.Train website to create or update your profile. Profile data can help with:
- Local, state, and national public health workforce assessments
- Planning
- Logistics
- Identifying training needs
We can help
Our staff can provide individual, comprehensive, in-person and/or virtual technical assistance, as needed, to determine best practices for data sharing, tracking, analyzing, and reporting on healthcare clinician and public health workforce data, training on how to implement the taxonomy process and provide access to the Colorado Health Systems Directory.
There are great opportunities to use the public health staffing data you have access to within your agency or division. Some examples include tracking staffing trends over time, calculating turnover rates, and demographics. Many of these processes can be automated, making tracking and reporting very easy. We can offer additional technical assistance and support in these areas as well, tailored to each agency's needs.
Next steps
- Integrate local and state data in CHSD as the central statewide source
- Incorporate feedback into the next iteration of taxonomy
- Submit taxonomy development and structure to peer-reviewed journals for publication
- Determine sustainable methods to collect individual, program-level staffing data statewide
- Standardize funding sources statewide down to the program level, and link funding and staffing data
Contact us
For any questions, access to documents, to provide feedback, or to get involved, please email Shanna Wisdom at shanna.wisdom@state.co.us.