Public Health Workforce Research in Review A 25-Year Retrospective Tracy M. Hilliard, PhD, MPH, Matthew L. Boulton, MD, MPH Context: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation commissioned a systematic review of public health workforce literature in fall 2010. This paper reviews public health workforce articles published from 1985 to 2010 that support development of a public health workforce research agenda, and address four public health workforce research themes: (1) diversity; (2) recruitment, retention, separation, and retirement; (3) education, training, and credentialing; and (4) pay, promotion, performance, and job satisfaction. Evidence acquisition: PubMed, ERIC, and Web of Science databases were used to search for articles; Google search engine was used to identify gray literature. The study used the following inclusion criteria: (1) articles written in English published in the U.S.; (2) the main theme(s) of the article relate to at least one of the four public health workforce research themes; and (3) the document focuses on the domestic public health workforce. Evidence synthesis: The literature suggests that the U.S. public health workforce is facing several urgent priorities that should be addressed, including: (1) developing an ethnically/racially diverse membership to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse nation; (2) recruiting and retaining highly trained, well-prepared employees, and succession planning to replace retirees; (3) building public health workforce infrastructure while also confronting a major shortage in the public health work- force, through increased education, training, and credentialing; and (4) ensuring competitive sala- ries, opportunities for career advancement, standards for workplace performance, and fostering environment with high levels of job satisfaction for effective delivery of services. Conclusions: Additional research is needed in all four thematic areas reviewed to develop well- informed, evidence-based strategies for effectively addressing critical issues facing the public health workforce. (Am J Prev Med 2012;42(5S1):S17–S28) © 2012 American Journal of Preventive Medicine Context Rationale T This systematic review was conducted on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the Center for Public Health Services and Systems Research (CPHSSR) to inform public health ser- vices and systems research (PHSSR) activities at the CDC and RWJF. Little research has been conducted on the infrastructure required to address public health work- force issues. National reports from the 1980s docu- mented the paucity of information available to support public health workforce planning and policy develop- ment. 1 More than 2 decades later, the IOM’s 2003 report Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? 2 validated the impor- tance of and need for a research agenda on workforce issues, and the research infrastructure necessary to un- dertake it. In 2004, Cioffı et al. 3 published results from an inter- active process to develop a research agenda for public health workforce development for those with an interest in the public health system. Expanding on that work, Crawford and colleagues 4 published a literature review on public health workforce research in 2009 titled Per- spectives on Public Health Workforce Research. In this seminal article, Crawford et al. provided a guiding frame- work from which public health workforce initiatives may be developed and served as a model for this systematic review. The time period of January 1, 1985, to December 10, 2010, was chosen for the search in order to maximize the probability of capturing publications associated with From Public Health - Seattle & King County, and University of Washing- ton, Department of Psychosocial and Community Health (Hilliard), Seat- tle, Washington; and the Departments of Epidemiology, Health Manage- ment and Policy, and Internal Medicine (Boulton), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Dr Hilliard was an unaffıliated scholar at the time that this research was conducted. Address correspondence to: Tracy M. Hilliard, PhD, MPH, PO Box 22134, Seattle WA 98122. E-mail: tmhill@uw.edu. 0749-3797/$36.00 doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2012.01.031 © 2012 American Journal of Preventive Medicine • Published by Elsevier Inc. Am J Prev Med 2012;42(5S1):S17–S28 S17