Public Health Workforce in Sudan: Trends, Challenges and Prospects

Three milestones could be identified in the history of public health workforce in Sudan. At the wake of the 20^th century, modern public health system emerged with pioneering work on environmental health, disease control and health research. Public health workforce represented a show piece with professionals and paraprofessionals working synergistically in management, delivery and promotion of public health interventions relevant to country priorities. This helped to rate the Sudanese health system high during the first half of the past century. A second milestone of public health undermining followed and persisted over the second half of the century. Main sequels included numerical shortages of public health professionals, lack of quality public health education, poor outlook and career prospects and segregated public health sub-professions. With the advent of this millennium, an era of public health revitalization ensued. Its main characteristics included  expansion of numbers through internal and oversees training, broadening the scope of public health practice, leadership development and role models, teamwork and inter-professional practice.

The current situation of public health workforce in Sudan is however, not without challenges. Prominent among these is addressing numerical gaps, retention of qualified staff, adapting to ever-expanding scope of public health practice and strengthening professionalism.    

The prospects for the development of public health workforce in Sudan are encouraging given the current level of political support and health system leadership. Positive features include ever-increasing postgraduate public health programs with multidisciplinary cohort of candidates, expanding scope of public health profession with career opportunities, professional platforms nurturing esteem and emerging evidence culture.  

As public health is vital for a nation challenged by double burden of disease and limited resources, development of the public health workforce should be prioritised and integrated into overall human resource planning for achieving national health goals.

Word count: 300