Abstract
This manuscript presents an initial description of doctoral level core competencies for health services research (HSR). The competencies were developed by a review of the literature, text analysis of institutional accreditation self-studies submitted to the Council on Education for Public Health, and a consensus conference of HSR educators from US educational institutions. The competencies are described in broad terms which reflect the unique expertise, interests, and preferred learning methods of academic HSR programs. This initial set of core competencies is published to generate further dialogue within and outside of the US about the most important learning objectives and methods for HSR training and to clarify the unique skills of HSR training program graduates.
Highlights
Health services research (HSR) is a scientific field that examines the structures, functions, policies, and outcomes of health services delivered to individuals and populations[1]
Need for Core Competencies In the 1995 Institute of Medicine report, Health Services Research: Training and Workforce Issues [2], four elements of HSR training were emphasized: its multi-disciplinary approach; inclusion of basic and applied research; use of conceptual and theoretical relationships within and between health systems; and, research done on both populations and individuals
The report did not specify the core skills or knowledge sets that are common to HSR professionals, it did suggest that "a single educational path is neither practical nor desirable" and HSR programs should offer a range of training opportunities
Summary
Health services research (HSR) is a scientific field that examines the structures, functions, policies, and outcomes of health services delivered to individuals and populations[1]. Our inability to clearly articulate the skill set that is unique to health services research is an unsatisfactory response to these talented students, and highlights the need to develop a common set of HSR competencies This manuscript describes an initial set of core competencies ("Version 1") for individuals trained at the doctoral level in HSR. Because the focus of this project was on health services researchers, programs designed to train managers of health systems were considered outside the project scope [6,7,8], as were articles and reports that described competencies in the general public health workforce [9,10] Excluding these groups, no literature was found that fully explicates the competencies of this field, even with the review of the MPH-level competencies for health policy and management developed by Association of Schools of Public Health [11]. We are publishing Version 1 of the HSR core competencies to generate discussion among a wider group of health services research professionals
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