In the national overall war and blockade war against COVID-19 epidemic, public health talents are undergoing a major test. How to optimize public health medical education and deepen the training of public health talents is a problem that we must seriously consider.

Public health education should be recognized by the public.

A recent survey by West China School of Public Health of Sichuan University and Peking University School of Public Health shows that the school of public health failed to complete the enrollment plan of that year, which shows that public health education has not attracted enough public recognition. How to enhance identity is the key to the development of public health education.

Subjects, majors and professional posts lack a sense of social identity, making it difficult to attract outstanding students. The scores and admission scores of students majoring in public health and preventive medicine are generally lower than those of other medical majors such as clinical medicine. The quality of students is poor, and excellent students are unwilling to apply for the exam, which weakens the foundation of overall excellent public health personnel training to some extent. This will undoubtedly have a far-reaching impact on public health education and even the future development of public health undertakings.

The enrollment of public health education is small in scale and low in level, and there is a contradiction between supply and demand. According to the data of the National Medical Examination Center, in recent years, the number of clinical, oral, traditional Chinese medicine and public health doctors applying for practice has increased year by year, and only the number of public health doctors has decreased year by year. Relevant data show that the public health education in most countries in the world is mainly at the postgraduate level, while in China, undergraduate education is the absolute subject, the proportion of postgraduate education is too small, and the overall education level is low.

Insufficient investment in public health education and poor teaching conditions. Due to the lack of long-term investment, the overall teaching conditions of public health college are poor, especially the outdated teaching and scientific research experimental equipment, which is still far behind the CDC, affecting the quality of public health education and personnel training.

Public health education is out of touch with public health reality. Due to the lack of effective cooperative education system and mechanism between the School of Public Health and the CDC and other public health institutions, the school curriculum system and teaching content are out of line with the requirements of public health posts, students' theoretical knowledge of basic medicine and clinical medicine is thin, and their practical ability and ability to analyze and deal with actual public health problems are weak.

The lack of attractiveness of jobs affects graduates' employment. Due to the low matching degree between economic income and job acquisition, the whole public health system is seriously lost. On the other hand, it is difficult for professionals in disease control system to enter the team, and it is relatively difficult to promote their professional titles. These are transmitted to the supply side through the talent market, resulting in a small scale of public health personnel training and affecting the effective supply of talents.

Deepen the major reform of public health education.

It is necessary for us to learn from the common practices and beneficial experiences of foreign public health education and combine our national conditions to deepen the major reform of public health education and personnel training in China.

(1) Strengthening government responsibility and leadership.

Systematically design and vigorously promote the reform of public health education personnel training at the national level. The policies and measures of public health education reform need to be upgraded to government planning. The State Council, Ministry of Education, Health and Health Commission, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and other ministries and commissions should make overall plans for the training of public health education talents in China, lead the reform and development of public health education in China, and jointly formulate special policies specifically for the training of public health talents, especially to guide outstanding students to choose public health majors; It is necessary to encourage public health graduates to work at the grassroots level, and set up public health personnel training plans and public health education reform projects; Governments at all levels pay full attention to the investment and development planning of public health system, public health education and personnel training when formulating the tenth five-year plan and even the long-term development plan; A national expert group on public health preventive medicine education and personnel training should be established to play the role of a think tank and plan, design and guide public health preventive medicine education and personnel training.

Increase investment in public health education

Set up special projects to build a number of high-quality and high-level public health colleges, and play a leading, demonstrating and promoting role in personnel training, making them important national and regional bases, high-level research bases and international cooperation bases;

Increase investment, build a number of teaching and research laboratories in public health colleges and universities, improve the laboratory level, especially build high-level teaching laboratories and training centers, and comprehensively improve the scientific and technological innovation and achievement transformation ability of public health education and disease prevention and control.

Choose a public health college in each province to establish a "public health emergency drill center" to undertake the training function of medical and health personnel and health management personnel to deal with various public health emergencies.

Set up a special training program for public health personnel, carry out batch training for provincial, municipal, county/district personnel in different modes and in a planned way, and rely on various forms of continuing education to solve the problem of "stock personnel" and improve the quality and ability of the whole public health industry.

(C) the establishment of collaborative public health education system and mechanism

It is necessary to strengthen the cooperation between the college of public health in colleges and universities and public health institutions such as CDC and health supervision institutions, and treat the provincial CDC as a non-directly affiliated institution of the college of public health, giving it educational functions, forming a close relationship similar to that of university medical colleges and their affiliated hospitals. The provincial CDC can cooperate with the College of Public Health in colleges and universities to build a medical college of public health prevention, and actively explore the establishment of a new system and mechanism of "college-center" talent training. Experts from CDC offer courses in schools, and teachers from School of Public Health participate in the practice of disease control, so as to build a "double-qualified" teaching team with theoretical basis and practical experience in disease control.

(D) to improve the level of public health education personnel training

Select a group of public health colleges with a long history, strong teachers and high school level to hold seven-year public health education, expand the enrollment scale, attract outstanding students, cultivate high-level compound public health talents, and award bachelor of medicine and master of public health degrees after graduation.

Set up eight-year doctoral education in public health in public health colleges of a number of key universities to cultivate high-level backbone talents. Establish doctoral education and postdoctoral workstations for prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases in key public health colleges to improve the teaching and research level of acute infectious diseases and emerging infectious diseases in public health colleges.

(five) to enhance the professional status and post treatment of public health.

The CDC will be transformed from a public institution into an administrative unit, and at the same time, it will be given more independent public health management power to enhance the status of the CDC. Establish an effective talent incentive mechanism, retain the backbone, vigorously introduce high-level talents in short supply, actively send outstanding public health preventive medicine talents to important positions in the government and health administrative departments, and improve the overall ability and level of the team.

(six) to give public health doctors the right to prescribe.

The system of combining prevention and treatment at the grass-roots level needs public health doctors who can prevent and treat it. It is a realistic need to endow public health doctors with the ability certification of "governance", which is an inevitable requirement for developing China's public health undertakings and enhancing the competitiveness and attractiveness of public health.

(Author: Zhang Lin, Professor and Vice President of Sichuan University)