Enhancing the Applied Epidemiology Workforce: The Impact of the 2021 Epidemiology Capacity Assessment on CSTE's Workforce Priorities

The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) conducted the seventh Epidemiology Capacity Assessment (ECA) from January to April 2021 in state and territorial health departments. The ECA serves to enumerate the applied epidemiology workforce and evaluate workforce capacity across the nation. The results of the ECA demonstrated a need for additional epidemiologists across jurisdictions and challenges of maintaining a trained workforce and improving public health infrastructure. The results of the ECA serve as the foundation for CSTE's workforce priorities, which focus on transforming applied epidemiology by promoting the field as a career opportunity, recruitment, and retention strategies, upskilling the workforce, and enhancing infrastructure. CSTE has outlined current and future workforce priorities, and these priorities contribute to a larger strategy to transform the field and enhance applied epidemiology capacity nationwide. This report describes the programmatic actions taken by CSTE in response to the results of the 2021 ECA.