The State of the States: Workforce Trends and Challenges in State Health Departments From the 2024 Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS).

CONTEXT: The 2024 Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) offers important data on the composition, well-being, and training needs of the public health workforce in the post-COVID-19 era.

OBJECTIVE

To characterize the state governmental public health workforce in 2024 and provide a comparison to the 2021 survey.

DESIGN

State health agency leaders were invited to have their workforce participate in PH WINS 2024. Participating agencies provided staff lists used to send e-mail invitations to employees to participate in this electronic survey.

SETTING

State health agencies.

PARTICIPANTS

State health agency central office staff.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: PH WINS 2024 maintains the domains from previous fieldings (ie, workplace engagement, training needs assessment, emerging public health concepts, well-being, and demographics).

RESULTS

The proportion of staff aged 35 and under increased approximately 4% from 20% in 2021 (95% CI: 20%-21%) to 24% in 2024 (95% CI: 23%-24%). State health agency central office staff with 5 or fewer years in their current agency increased from 49% (95% CI: 48%-50%) in 2021 to 55% (95% CI:54%-56%) in 2024. Self-reported mental health improved with the proportion of those rating their mental and emotional health as poor or fair in 2021, 5% (95% CI:4%-5%) and 18% (95% CI: 17%-19%), respectively, decreasing to 3% (95% CI: 3%-3%) and 15% (95% CI: 14%-15%), respectively, in 2024. The top 3 strategic skill training needs in 2024 were budget and financial management (48%; 95% CI: 47%-49%), policy engagement (38%; 95% CI: 37%-39%), and systems and strategic thinking (34%; 95% CI: 33%-34%).

CONCLUSION

The 2024 PH WINS results indicate demographic shifts toward a state health agency central office workforce that is younger in age and tenure and positive improvements in key workforce well-being indicators that can inform future public health infrastructure investments and field practices to ensure a robust public health system.