The public health workforce is in a critical state, with the current supply being unsustainable at best and dire at worst. Based on data from 2017 and 2019, health departments needed to hire 80,000 full-time employees to provide basic public health foundational services even before the onset of COVID-19. The situation has likely worsened due to the mass exodus of public health officials during the pandemic. Therefore, gaining a better understanding of public health workforce turnover is essential to improving recruitment and retention in the field.

This article explains how the authors harmonized 4 public health workforce surveys—PH WINS, NACCHO Profile, NACCHO Forces of Change, and ASTHO Profile—to analyze employee turnover.