Over the years, interest in the development of the public health profession has increasingly focused on the development of core competences for public health education, research and practice. Competences should reflect the challenges meeting the community and the public health professional as concerns population health as well as health systems, so that rational goal-oriented strategies can be developed with relevant resources, including the necessary human capacity. Profiles of competences can be described and developed for individual professionals as well as for institutions, organisations and geographical and political areas, e.g. nations. Thus, the development of lists of competences plays a crucial role for the relevant development of public health systems, and country-specific experience from this sort of interaction should be internationally disseminated and discussed. The philosophies and principles applied as well as the process for development of lists of core competences have, to some extent, followed different routes in USA and Europe, reflecting variations in the health of the populations as well the structure, function, resources, culture and traditions of health systems, including public health systems.