Public health professionals play a crucial role in ensuring a community's general health and well-being. They use a variety of skills to assess the needs of individuals and groups, teach them about health and lobby for public health reform. Learning about the necessary skills to work in public health can help you advance your career and become a more effective professional.

Analytics and assessment

Analytical skills allow you to evaluate information, analyse problems and find solutions. These skills are essential in the public health field, which requires handling large amounts of data. Analytical thinking can help you understand data's larger context and divide big chunks of information to discover relevant details.

Policy planning and development

Planning policies and developing programmes are core public health professional tasks that require several skills, including research, data analysis and critical thinking. These abilities can help you identify, promote, plan, implement and evaluate policies and programmes to address public health challenges. They also allow you to develop strategies for ongoing quality improvement initiatives and enhanced community health.

Communication

Communication involves the ability to listen to, understand and convey information clearly to others. Public health professionals share their expertise with people to improve the population's health and well-being. They help professionals evaluate and address population literacy, request and use community feedback, communicate statistics and information and explain the government's role in the health care system.

Financial planning and management

Financial planning involves handling money, while management is about handling people. Both these skills are essential to public health care work, especially for more senior positions. Financial planning and management help professionals in the field run the country's public health programmes.

Leadership

Leadership is about persuading others to pursue a particular course of action. In public health, its aim is to convince people to take actions that improve their health. Leadership abilities can help integrate ethical norms within an organisation and enhance collaboration between organisations, including public health and health care.