Post-graduate medical education in public health: the case of Italy and a call for action.

Public health technical expertise is of crucial importance to inform decisionmakers' action in the field of health and its broader determinants. Improvingeducation and training of public health professionals for both practice andresearch is the starting point to strengthen the role of public health so thatcurrent health challenges can be efficiently tackled. At the Association ofSchools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) Deans' & Directors' 2017Annual Retreat, we presented the structure and management of public healthtraining system in Italy, and we reported recent data on Italian public healthspecialists' educational experience, employment opportunities and jobsatisfaction. Public health training in Italy is implemented in the context ofthe post-graduate medical education residency programme in Hygiene and PreventiveMedicine, delivered by 34 University-based Schools of Public Health. We reportrelatively high employment rates across the county and wide spectrum of careeropportunities for young public health specialists. However, job security is lowand training expectations only partially met. We call upon other Schools ofPublic Health to scale up the survey within the broad ASPHER community in ashared and coordinated action of systematically collecting useful data that caninform the development of public health education and training models, theirimplementation and fruitful interaction with population health, health systemsand services.