Enhancing Public Health Workforce Competencies: AI Integration and Post-Pandemic Educational Reforms

The field of public health has been significantly challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing critical weaknesses in global health systems. The pandemic has exposed not only policy shortcomings but also deep-rooted structural issues within the public health ecosystem, particularly in the education and training of healthcare professionals. These deficiencies have been further accentuated by the rapid advancement of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), which has underscored the inadequacies in the knowledge and skills of the public health workforce, including doctors, nurses, and public health professionals. Recent studies indicate that many healthcare professionals rate their AI-related competencies as insufficient, highlighting a pressing need for reform. While some efforts have been made to address these gaps, there remains a significant need for comprehensive strategies to enhance the resilience and effectiveness of the public health workforce in the face of future global health threats.

This research topic aims to explore how the public health workforce can leverage the lessons and legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside the challenges and opportunities presented by AI, to improve education, training, and professional development. The objective is to identify pathways for local reform or systemic transformation that can strengthen global health systems and better prepare them for future crises. Key questions include how to integrate AI-related knowledge into public health education and how to adapt ethical training to address new challenges in the post-COVID and AI era.

To gather further insights in the intersection of public health education and AI integration, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• What are COVID-19’s lessons and legacies for the public health workforce, especially in the post-COVID-19 era?
• How should the public health workforce integrate the lessons and legacies of COVID-19, along with AI's challenges and opportunities?
• What challenges and opportunities might the public health workforce encounter when implementing educational reform in the post-COVID and AI era?
• To what extent should post-COVID public health education incorporate AI-related knowledge and skills into the core curricula?
• Both COVID-19 and AI have amplified existing ethical concerns and introduced new considerations.
• To what degree do education and training on medical or public health ethics need to adapt to reflect and address the threats presented in the post-COVID and AI era?