Abstract
Recent infectious disease outbreaks highlight the importance of competent professionals with expertise on public health preparedness and response at airports. The availability of a competency profile for this workforce supports efficient education and training. Although competency profiles for infectious disease control professionals are available, none addresses the complex airport environment. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to develop a competency profile for professionals involved in infectious disease preparedness and response at airports in order to stimulate and direct further education and training. We developed the competency profile through the following steps: 1) extraction of competencies from relevant literature, 2) assessment of the profile in a national RAND modified Delphi study with an interdisciplinary expert group (n = 9) and 3) assessment of the profile in an international RAND modified Delphi study with an airport infectious disease management panel of ten European countries (n = 10). We systematically studied two competency profiles on infectious disease control and three air transport guidelines on event management, and extracted 61 relevant competencies for airports. The two RAND modified Delphi procedures further refined the profile, mainly by specifying a competency's target group, the organizational level it should be present on, and the exact actions that should be mastered. The final profile, consisting of 59 competencies, covers the whole process from infectious disease preparedness, through the response phase and the recovery at airports. We designed a profile to support training and exercising the multidisciplinary group of professionals in infectious disease management in the airport setting, and which is ready for use in practice. The many adaptations and adjustments that were needed to develop this profile out of existing profiles and air transport guidelines suggest that other setting-specific profiles in infectious disease control are desirable.
Highlights
Nowadays, people travel further, faster, and in higher numbers than ever before [1]
We systematically studied two competency profiles on infectious disease control and three air transport guidelines on event management, and extracted 61 relevant competencies for airports
We designed a profile to support training and exercising the multidisciplinary group of professionals in infectious disease management in the airport setting, and which is ready for use in practice
Summary
People travel further, faster, and in higher numbers than ever before [1]. While the increased speed of human mobility has economic advantages [2], it has created a global transport network for infectious diseases [3, 4]. The volume of air travel continues to increase annually, as well as the amount of infections imported by travelers [6, 7]. It is, crucial that airports have enough capacity to prevent the rapid spread of infectious diseases to other areas [8,9,10]. Recent infectious disease outbreaks highlight the importance of competent professionals with expertise on public health preparedness and response at airports. The main aim of this study is to develop a competency profile for professionals involved in infectious disease preparedness and response at airports in order to stimulate and direct further education and training
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