Abstract
To gather consensus on professional competencies and basic public health content for the degree program in Human Nutrition and Dietetics (HND). In 2018, the Fifth Meeting of University Public Health Professors took place in Zaragoza (Spain). Fourteen lecturers in the HND degree program participated from 11 Spanish universities. They identified competencies and basic content for training for the HND degree using group dynamics and consensus strategies. The professors identified 51 basic competencies, distributed in the areas of "evaluation of population health needs" (n = 20), "development of health policies" (n = 23), and "guaranteeing provision of health care services" (n = 8). In order to reach these competencies, 35 topics were proposed organized into six thematic blocks: foundations of public health, nutritional epidemiology, health problems and diet and nutrition strategies, food security, health in all policies and health promotion and education. The consensus reached serves as a reference to orient and update public health education as a part of the HND degree.
Highlights
Professional competencies in public health are those capacities needed in order to reach public health objectives such as the prevention of disease and health surveillance, protection, promotion and recuperation in individuals and groups [1]
The consensus reached serves as a reference to orient and update public health education as a part of the Human Nutrition and Dietetics (HND) degree
This work allowed for identifying the common competencies and content of public health education for different degree programs [4, 5]
Summary
Professional competencies in public health are those capacities needed in order to reach public health objectives such as the prevention of disease and health surveillance, protection, promotion and recuperation in individuals and groups [1]. The definition of public health shows the areas for action as well as the multi-professional nature of the field. This diversity of profiles and of activities make the definition of professional competencies difficult. Different national and international initiatives have proposed defining competencies in public health. One such initiative was that proposed by the United States Institute of Medicine, which was the designation of essential functions in public health practice [2]. In order to establish a common framework in Spain in 2006, the Spanish Society for Public Health and Health Administration and the Spanish Epidemiological Society published a list of public health professional competencies [3]. This work allowed for identifying the common competencies and content of public health education for different degree programs [4, 5]
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