Sharing European Educational Experience in Public Health for Israel (SEEEPHI):

On 12-14 September 2022 in Tel Aviv, Israel, ASPHER Executive Board Member, Nadav Davidovitch and SEEEPHI partner from BGU attended the World Health Organization (WHO) European Regional Committee meeting. He made the following non-State Actor Statement on behalf ASPHER to an international audience at the 13 September side event on Health Workforce Professionalization:

"Hello. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to make a statement. My name is Nadav Davidovitch and I am here in my capacity as a delegate for the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) and Israel country lead of the ASPHER coordinated ERASMUS+ Capacity Building in the Field of Higher Education project, SEEEPHI.

SEEEPHI, Sharing European Educational Experience in Public Health for Israel, aims to build public health capacity in Israel by learning from EU best practices in education to better prepare and train the public health workforce to meet employer and community needs and expectations, while also strengthening the professional identity for public health in Israel.

SEEEPHI seeks to create systematic impact through the key levers of professionalisation: competencies, training, formal organization, professional credentialing, and code of conduct. Through the project, employers and higher education institutions in Israel have been surveyed to better synergise what is taught with what is needed for practice in the field. A Public Health Leadership Academy has been established and will begin to pilot training for public health faculty in Israel in hands-on Problem Based Learning. An online platform is under development to allow those working in public health to register, and connect with employers and educational programmes. And finally a special ‘I am Public Health’ campaign is underway to recognize and strengthen the identities of public health professionals.

SEEEPHI is rooted strongly in the collaborative work of WHO-Europe and ASPHER in the area of public health workforce professionalisation, including the WHO-ASPHER Competency Framework for the Public Health Workforce, and the recently launched WHO-ASPHER Roadmap to Professionalizing the Public Health Workforce in the European Region. The SEEEPHI project is a great opportunity to pilot these efforts and ASPHER intends to take the lessons learnt to populate similar actions across the European Region in synergy with the WHO-Europe, which is already advancing through the newly established joint Task Force on Professionalising the Public Health Workforce. And further globally through the ASPHER-founded Global Network for Academic Public Health (GNAPH), which brings together schools networks in other regions to engage in relevant global actions.

I am proud to be involved with SEEEPHI and to see my country embrace the project with great enthusiasm, leading as an example of good practice. I am also personally delighted that Israel is hosting the WHO-Europe Regional Committee meeting and to have this special opportunity to highlight how the work of WHO and ASPHER is translated into practice here. I therefore thank you for you time and for WHO-Europe’s continued commitment and attention to concrete action for professionalisation of the public health workforce."