Development and implementation of a public health workforce training needs assessment survey in North Carolina.

Assessing the training needs of local public health workers is an important step toward providing appropriate training programs in emergency preparedness and core public health competencies. The North Carolina Public Health Workforce Training Needs Assessment survey was implemented through the collaboration of several organizations, including the North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness at the North Carolina Institute for Public Health, the outreach and service unit of the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response in the North Carolina Division of Public Health Epidemiology Section, and local health departments across the state.

The North Carolina experiment: academia-practice partnerships.

Bringing academia and public health practice closer is a major challenge to the field. The Institute of Medicine's report, The Future of Public Health, emphasizes the need for practice scholarship and closer relationships between schools of public health and the practice arena. However, little has been written on the "how to" of developing these partnerships. This article describes four approaches utilized by the North Carolina Institute for Public Health for sustainable partnerships. Each approach is depicted along with its strengths and weaknesses identified. Characteristics of the approaches are described as well as being depicted by diagrams. A time context for each approach suggests the type of events for which the approach works. Culture and requirements of the respective partners' organization must be taken into consideration in utilizing any of the approaches. Some events in the practice setting cannot wait for an academia calendar. Therefore, all successful partnerships approach must be built on realistic expectation and trust.