Equipping the Public Health Workforce of the Future: Evaluation of an Evidence-Based Public Health Training Delivered Through Academic-Health Department Partnerships

This article evaluates a collaborative model for delivering evidence-based public health (EBPH) training through partnerships between academic centers, health departments, and Public Health Training Centers. The training strengthened key skills such as economic evaluation, action planning, program evaluation, and applying evidence to decision-making. Participants showed significant improvement across all 14 measured skills. The partnership model worked because each organization contributed its strengths—practice expertise, academic content knowledge, and training infrastructure. For preparedness practitioners, this model offers a practical way to build workforce capacity, strengthen academic-practice relationships, and improve the quality and consistency of evidence-based emergency and public health decision-making.