Discussion: Public Health Certifications

The certification credentials are essential accreditation tools for public health workforce. These credentials keep the workforce current and accredited in knowledge, skills, techniques, and trends in public health. Through these credentials, a certified person also has a way to get accredited for the sufficient experience, skills, and knowledge gained through work experience, though, the person may not had a chance earlier to get an university degree in public health. But unfortunately, lots of public health departments are unaware about these accreditation tools and are unwilling recognizing these credentials. The public health department still put emphasis on a public health university degree for the eligibility and in result, facing challenges to find candidates for public health workforce. Therefore, it is time that public health work departments acknowledge and recognize the certification credentials in not only in recruitment but also accreditation of public health workforce. 

I'm CIC-certified and just recertified for the first time this past year (certificates last for 5 years). For public health professionals, this certification is most helpful for those who focus on healthcare-associated infections, or will be working closely with healthcare facilities and clinicians to address outbreaks and infection control issues. It also helps to open the door to a career path in infection prevention and control at a healthcare facility/system, especially for those who don't have previous clinical experience. Although it was tough for folks in public health to meet the eligibility requirements to sit for the exam, CBIC has been making this more available by offering multiple versions of the certification available with different pathways to eligibility. The exam is very broad in scope so test prep is essential; doing practice questions was very helpful for me. Recertification can either be done by test or by continuing education and I find that I easily met the continuing education criteria by completing my regular job duties and didn't need to pursue anything additional. I would be happy to chat with anyone who is interested in the CIC.