Five volumes of the Strategic Skills for Public Health Practice book series have been published so far, offering real-world insights. Upcoming in the series are books on communication, budget and finance, partnerships, and management.
Photo by Michele Late
“Leaders don't react to the future. Leaders build the future. I want leaders reading these books to build a future that's better for public health, better for our people and better for the nation.”
— Brian Castrucci
As the needs of the public health workforce continue to change, a timely, easy-to-use book series is helping practitioners expand their skills to improve and protect health.
Now boasting five volumes, the Strategic Skills for Public Health Practice book series, published by APHA Press, offers useful, real-world insights on community and policy engagement, strategic thinking, data-informed decisionmaking and equity that workers can use to boost their know-how.
The series was envisioned nearly a decade ago following a 2017 report from the de Beaumont Foundation and its National Consortium for Public Health Workforce Development. The report found changes within public health agencies — such as job losses, advances in technology and evolving policies — were driving a need for new skills. More studies and research followed that refined the areas needed to improve the public health workforce.
The series, which is available in print or as e-books, will span nine volumes. Series readers can gain indispensable, high-performance skills identified as beneficial for the workforce — without regard to specialty or discipline. Upcoming book themes cover effective communication, management, partnerships, and budget and finance.
The skills will be in the spotlight during a Nov. 3 session at APHA's 2026 Annual Meeting and Expo in San Antonio, in which leaders will discuss the needs of the public health workforce, which continue to evolve.
Brian Castrucci, DrPH, MA, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, talked to The Nation's Health about how the series meets those needs.
What can public health professionals learn from the strategic skills series?
We're not taught how to do a whole set of things in public health.
What you really want to think about is that a perfect (public health) employee is a “T,” like the letter T, and that vertical bar on the T is your deep scientific knowledge: maternal child health, epidemiology, health behavior, whatever it may be. That crossbar for the T, that is the strategic skills. Those are the skills that you're going to use across all different sectors to help people understand public health and its value.
But the training most of us have in public health is in public health. I'm a really good epidemiologist. What I had to learn was how to make that knowledge effective, how to translate it, how to work with data, how to run a budget.
I mean, we end up leaving a school of public health with an MPH or a DrPH, and next thing you know we're head of a Title X program and running a $16 million budget. Sixteen million dollars over 10 sites with reporting to the federal government, with fringe rates and indirect rates. You have to figure out on your own how to create a budget from scratch.
The strategic skills series is a way that you can think about engaging your communities and working with systems and working with data in a different way that is not taught in our schools of public health.
When you look at the strategic skills, they're there to round us out.
Tell me about the books that are coming.
One is on effective communication.
Public health is under ridicule. Yet we've given the American public 25 years of life expectancy in the last century. Imagine if we had an elixir that you and I cooked up in a lab and we tested it. We found that it gave people 25 years of additional life. What do you think we would sell that for at Nordstrom's?
But here we are, public health, giving 25 years of life expectancy to every American, and no one knows that. That's a lack of strategic skill. That's a lack of communication. That's a lack of marketing.
That's a lack of engaging with our partners in a way that helps them understand the value of public health. We will never move forward as a field if people don't view us as valuable, if they don't see the value that we give them. Do you buy anything that doesn't give you value?
I'm not going to go into a health department and tell them how to do home visiting better. They know how to do that. I don't want to tell them how to do vaccination better. They know how to do that. Or how to do immunization. They know how to do that.
What our field doesn't know how to do is how to communicate.
Another title is on cross-sectoral partnerships. That is actually our bread and butter, and rarely does anyone teach you how to do that.
We just always find the people who are good at it. But we need to develop that as a skill, and that's a deep and trusting relationship with an elected official, with a business leader, with a faith leader, with our community.
Another is resource management and finance. How do you run a budget? How do you understand spending? Those are skills you need, regardless of what's happening in public health.
How does this series move the workforce forward?
We talk about public health 3.0. We talk about a lot of destinations in public health.
What we don't often have is the how to get there. The strategic skills series is building that part of how to get there.
What do you hope readers take away from the series?
Change is coming. The question is, do you want to react to the change, or do you want to be the person that drives the change?
The strategic skills series helps you drive the change because leaders don't react to the future. Leaders build the future.
I want leaders reading these books to build a future that's better for public health, better for our people and better for the nation.
To learn more about the Strategic Skills for Public Health Practice series, visit www.aphabookstore.org. To register for APHA 2026, visit www.apha.org/annualmeeting.
The interview was edited for length, style and clarity.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
