162 Nutrition & Dietetics (2004) 61:3 Original research Enumerating and profiling the designated public health nutrition workforce in Australia Roger Hughes Abstract (Nutr Diet 2004;61:162–71) Objective: To assess the size, demographic, educational and organisational characteristics of the designated Australian public health nutrition workforce. Design: A cross-sectional survey of population-based nutrition positions in the Australian health system using a self-completed questionnaire was conducted over the December 2001–February 2002 period. Subject identi- fication involved use of existing state public health nutrition network contact lists complemented by snowball sampling. Descriptive data from 12 questions focusing on workforce demographics, employment characteris- tics and qualifications from a larger questionnaire were reported, and projected workforce needs calculated. Subjects and setting: Two hundred and forty population-based nutrition practitioners in Australia. Main outcome measures: Descriptive data profiling the demographic, educational and employment charac- teristics of the designated public health nutrition workforce. Results: An 87% response rate was achieved. Enumeration estimates and workforce need projections based on internationally recognised benchmarks indicate the Australian public health nutrition workforce is under 40% of the size needed. The demographic profile of this sample indicates a workforce that is highly feminised (95% female) and mostly between 26 to 45 years of age. Less than half (49%) are in permanent full-time posi- tions and 22% are temporary or casual. State health departments are the main employers (76%). The study found a small cohort of designated public health nutrition positions (less than 50) nation-wide with most clas- sifying the nature of their position as that of community-based nutritionists/dietitians. The use of ‘public health nutritionist’ as a position title was limited to less than 20 practitioners nationally. The majority of the workforce sampled (75%) had entry-level dietetics qualifications with only 17% of dietetics graduates having higher degree or further public health qualifications. Across the whole sample only 14% had public health or higher degree qualifications. Conclusions: The capacity of the designated public health nutrition workforce is limited by its overall size, a small number of advanced-level qualified practitioners and instability associated with unsecured employment status. Ongoing monitoring of the public health nutrition workforce is required to evaluate the effectiveness of workforce development strategies and the effects of health service policy changes that impact on workforce capacity. Key words: public health nutrition, workforce size, workforce capacity, Australia Nutrition Unit, School of Health Science, Griffith University Roger Hughes, BSc, GradDipNutrDiet, PGradDipHlthPromo, MPH, PhD, APD, RPHN, Director Correspondence: R. Hughes, Nutrition Unit, School of Health Science, Griffith University, PMB 50, Gold Coast, Queensland 4217. Email: r.hughes@griffith.edu.au Introduction The public health nutrition (PHN) workforce is an integral component of national public health infrastructure that underpins societal capacity to address population-level nutrition issues. There has been considerable recent focus on efforts to enumerate and profile the public health work- force in order to plan for workforce development, led by workforce scholarship in the United States (1–4). There have been only a few specific studies published that describe the national public health workforce specialising in nutrition in the United States (5,6), Canada (7) and Britain (8). In Australia the information about the public health nutrition workforce can be found in unpublished reports (9,10) or has to be interpreted from workforce stud- ies in the nutrition and dietetics field. Workforce studies in nutrition and dietetics in Australia (11–16) are limited in their specific reference to public health nutrition practice, and reference to this professional group in isolation ignores the often multidisciplinary nature of public health work. The ability to address the capacity development objec- tives (particularly those relating to workforce development) of the national PHN strategy, Eat Well Australia (17), is diminished without an understanding of the size and composition of the current workforce con- tributing to the PHN effort. Planning for future workforce