Additional public health competencies required by public health graduates to handle public health emergency of international concern

COVID-19, a public health emergency of international concern, had brought an enormous strain on our fragile and overburdened public health systems. Having a competent public health workforce is a key attribute to mitigate the shock and disruptions that such pandemics pose. We aimed to elucidate the additional key public health competencies which would be required by the public health graduates, post COVID-19 pandemic, to handle such public health emergency of international concern. Three separate focused group discussions were conducted. The first and second groups consisted of all students pursuing first and second year Master of Public Health program from an Indian Institute respectively. The third group was heterogeneous and consisted of all teaching faculty in an Indian institute imparting public health training; and public health professionals working in governmental sector, non-governmental organizations and corporate social responsibility foundations in India. The sampling method used was purposive for participants from governmental, non-governmental sectors, and Corporate Social Responsibility foundations. After obtaining voluntary informed consent, the focus group discussions were recorded, and transcribed. Themes were coded and analyzed using the NVivo 12 software. Social media engagement, adaptive agility in utilizing information technology, systems thinking, community empowerment, communication skills with empathy, data visualization and interpretation, community based participatory research skills, managerial skills with the mind set of an entrepreneur and program planning skills were the additional key public health competencies required by the public health graduates to handle public health emergency of international concern.