Recruiting the Future Public Health Workforce: An Analysis of Prospect Communication Among Accredited Schools of Public Health

Schools of Public Health cannot sustain the national momentum for public health justice and human rights without recruiting and training a skilled public health workforce. With growing demand for public health workers, schools must work to increase their applicant pools. This project examined prospect communication materials from accredited Schools of Public Health and found that the vast majority of schools did not capitalize on opportunities to move prospects to applicants. Whereas most responded within a reasonable time, several schools made no communication efforts at all. Recruitment materials varied widely from institution to institution and between epidemiology and health education programs. Strategic, personalized communication strategies—the 3 Cs—are recommended to increase the pools of qualified applicants nationwide and can be utilized to increase prospect pools in a wide range of health sciences.