Open research questions in Public Health Policies and Education

What the literature leaves open

• Their involvement helps ensure that public health diplomacy reflects the priorities of future generations. By championing inclusiveness, youth advance more equitable and resilient diplomatic systems. Second, the theme of multisectoral and multilevel collaboration mirrors theoretical work, which argues that global health diplomacy must go beyond traditional diplomatic actors. Complex health challenges demand a more integrative approach. Indeed, scholars have argued that PHD requires actors with technical expertise, legal acumen, and diplomatic skills that extend beyond diplomats (such as public health professionals) (11, 12). The workshop findings on the importance of cross-sectoral engagement echo this imperative and suggest that young “bridge-makers” are well-placed to help operationalize integrated diplomacy in practice. Third, the orientation toward equity-centered, bottom-up approaches underscores the normative evolution of PHD in a polycrisis world. This resonates with recent critiques of health diplomacy that highlight the dangers of excluding marginalized integrative reviews of disinformation voices. For example, and conflict argue that top-down responses are foster inclusion, insufficient; transparency, and local participation to counter systemic distrust (13). Moreover, systematic reviews of global health diplomacy instead, health diplomacy must traditional in non-communicable disease contexts reveal that equity-driven frameworks can strengthen both legitimacy and effectiveness (14). Fourth, participants stressed the need for capacity building and professionalization: negotiation, systems thinking, adaptive leadership, and conflict resolution emerged as priority skills requiring training. This finding dovetails with analyses showing that current global health diplomacy practitioners often lack formal training in diplomacy, management, or political negotiation (15). Strengthening these competencies, as the participants proposed, through specialized curricula, negotiation tracks, and “diplomacy & communications” trainings could fortify PHD as a robust field of practice rather than as ad hoc activism. The role of youth as future public health diplomats emerged strongly from the discussions. Youth were recognized not just as beneficiaries but as active agents capable of shaping global health agendas through advocacy, representation, and is particularly meaningful because innovation.

  Public health diplomacy in an era of complexity, uncertainty, and unpredictability: perspectives from a YFG–ASPHER workshop · 2026 · DOI

• In order to fulfill this vision, further research is needed on the impact of frameworks for the governance of AI, the provision of digital skills training, institutional support, and ethical considerations on the efficacy, sustainability, and engagement of youth health volunteers within varying health care systems.

  Youth health volunteers shaping the future of community-based digital health · 2026 · DOI

• Embrace productive friction; ask mindful questions while avoiding burdensome surveys and consultations. Always ground efforts in lived experiences to produce better outcomes and experiences for all. Establish a Shared Vision for Madein- Saskatchewan LHSs Work with Patient Partners, the wider health system, and researchers. Respond to the challenge of building LHSs to improve health and healthcare.

  Learning Health Systems Symposium: Charting the Future of Saskatchewan Healthcare · 2026 · DOI

• intended to “transform economic systems and co-create a policy design guide to…deliver shared wellbeing” None of the Council’s recommendations would be foreign to public health activists who have long argued the health-determining importance of progressive taxation, environmental justice, economic fairness, gender equity, collective human rights, food security, and properly financed governments dedicated to protecting civic spaces for public engagement in policy making. The 2026 World Health Assembly codified some of these ambitions in a number of specific strategies that it urged member states to adopt. A year after the WHO Council released its final report the Club of Rome collaboration published its Earth4All Survival Guide for Humanity, identifying 5 great turnarounds with 17 specific policy directives intended to create a wellbeing economy. The Club of Rome is best known for its seminal 1972 book, The Limits to Growth, which modeled the social and environmental damage of continued unfettered economic growth. The Earth4All Guide similarly modeled future scenarios. Suffice to say: If we adopt its recommended and evidence-informed policies we will celebrate the year 2100 living healthier and more equal on a still vibrant planet. If we tinker with only modest economic and environmental reforms complicit with the capitalism/growth paradigm, we are more likely to welcome the next century in the midst of societal collapse on a nearly unlivable planet. There is some hopefulness here, as some countries are cautiously engaging with at least the idea of wellbeing economies. There is a Wellbeing Economy Alliance with over 500 member organizations (https://weall.org/) and a half dozen countries organized as ‘Wellbeing Economy Governments.’ While few wellbeing economy initiatives call out capitalism or adopt fiscally challenging policies, its language of “abundance, wellness and conviviality” resonates with what polling tells us many of the world’s peoples want: “an economy organized around wellbeing, rather than around growth and capital accumulation. At more local scales there are now 50 local and regional governments attempting to ground their policies using Kate Raworth’s influential doughnut economics model based on avoiding ecosystem overshoot and remedying social shortfalls in the determinants of health ( h t t p s: / / d o u g h n u t e c o n o m i c s. o r g /). Though grounded in the local, the model calls for assessment of how a city’s consumption impacts people globally and how its resource use affects planetary boundaries.

  From rupture to recourse: building a new economic order for health · 2026 · DOI

• one environmental surveillance of zoonotic viruses: lessons from COVID-19 and outlook beyond. ISME 2022;2(1):107. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43705-022-00191-8 . at Commun.

  Role of Central Health Education Bureau in One Health: National & Global Perspectives · 2026 · DOI

• Workshop insights need to move from theoretical frameworks to Development of a “Public Health Persona Typology” and an (XiA–ASPHER) practical implementation tools that map real educational needs across “Awareness Starter Pack”—curated micro-content learning blocks professional roles. providing jargon-free orientation on the EHDS, EEHRxF, and interoperability standards. HL7 FHIR, Health Level Seven Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources; SNOMED CT, Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine—Clinical Terms; ICD, International Classification of Diseases; openEHR, Open Electronic Health Record; EHDS, European Health Data Space; EEHRxF, European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format. cultures. Educational settings should therefore create opportunities for learners to build trust, communicate across disciplinary boundar- ies, and engage in shared problem-solving. Action-learning approaches were identified as especially valuable in this regard, as they enable students to work collectively on complex challenges while developing communication, reflexivity, and emotional intelligence alongside technical expertise (50, 51). There is a need to shift from isolated teaching of digital skills toward the cultivation of “collaboration readiness.” This includes competencies such as leadership, project management, conflict resolution, and ethical communication. Rather than a focus solely on static skills, curricula must prepare students for dynamic con- texts where roles, technologies, and priorities evolve. Similarly, it has been argued that health professions education must go beyond isolated competency development to produce collaborative-ready professionals equipped to work within complex health systems (52). In the context of mental health, where service provision fre- quently intersects with law, education, and community structures, interdisciplinary team-based learning becomes a mirror of actual practice. The development of a “partnership readiness assessment” as a tool for students to reflect on their own assumptions, biases, and collaborative competencies before engaging in team-based activities was highlighted. This tool supports a project-based learning (PBL) and design thinking in EU academic programs, which shows that experiential, team-based education fosters not only deeper learning but also long-term employability and innovation capacity (53). Recommendations include the adoption of interdisciplinary cap- stone projects, health-focused hackathons, and digital simulations or VR-based role-play environments. These real-world applications foster cognitive flexibility, systems thinking, and empathy, skills that are particularly vital in digital mental health contexts, where inter- ventions must balance technological capability with human dignity and psychosocial support. Alongside self-reflective tools, structural accountability mech- anisms are necessary to prevent the diffusion of responsibility that characterises large group projects. A RACI framework, clarifying who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for each project task provides an effective scaffold for interdisciplinary teams (54). Embedding RACI or equivalent role-assignment tools early in collaborative modules teaches students not only how to complete a task, but how to govern shared work. This mirrors real- world public health practice, where multi-agency initiatives suc- ceed or fail based on the clarity of role boundaries, not only on technical competence. Curricula should therefore include explicit instruction in collaborative governance, including role negotiation, conflict resolution protocols, and milestone accountability, as transferable professional competencies. Bringing real-world applications into the classroom is essential for preparing future professionals to work effectively in digitally mediated and interdisciplinary public health environments. Embedding expe- riential learning within curricula can help cultivate the adaptability, ethical awareness, and collaborative leadership needed to support responsible innovation in digital public health (55, 56).

  Designing interdisciplinary education in digital public health: a position paper · 2026 · DOI

• While this initiative yielded meaningful insights and programmatic progress, several limitations should be acknowledged: • Participation rates, while typical for climate surveys, limit generalizability • Self-selection bias may have influenced listening sessions • Outcome measures focused largely on perceptions rather than long-term retention…

  Transforming academia for equity: implementation at the University of Memphis · 2026 · DOI

• However, policy and programmatic frameworks for mitigation often rely on broad SDOH domains, without sufficient attention to the operating mechanisms, and effective SDOH mitigation strategies remain scarce.

  Conceptualizing the Mechanisms of Social Determinants of Health: A Heuristic Framework to Inform Future Directions for Mitigation · 2023 · DOI

• Semi-structured interviews and an editing (data-based) analytic strategy revealed six themes regarding barriers to maternal health: lack of continuous, quality health care coverage; racism and implicit bias; trauma and lack of mental health services; lack of instrumental and emotional support systems; insufficient knowledge for self-advocacy; and lack of data transparency and reliability.

  Diverse Perspectives to Support a Human Rights Approach to Reduce Indiana’s Maternal Mortality Rate · 2022 · DOI

• To embrace the health externalities generated by business activities, we propose that future research should investigate the conditions under which business (a) articulates and participates in health challenges, (b) engages in multilevel actions toward tackling health challenges, and (c) improves health outcomes and its impact on the health of external stakeholders, including customers and local communities.

  The Grand Challenge of Human Health: A Review and an Urgent Call for Business–Health Research · 2022 · DOI

• RESULTS: The following challenges were identified: the policy was perceived as an additional task by employees outside the health sector; initially no direct funding was allocated to intersectoral projects; the level of ambition was not balanced between sectors; there was a lack of ownership of the policy; baseline measures were lacking and the policy had no clear objectives.

  Intersectoral action for health: The experience of a Danish municipality · 2014 · DOI

• What exactly wellness discrimination might look like in practice across many contexts is an open question, but there is good reason to be wary of the power of wellness to create and reproduce hierarchy, to promote homogeneity, narrow-mindedness, and moralism about how to live one's life, and to cover for discrimination based on health, weight, income, age, pregnancy, and disability.

  Critical Perspectives on Wellness · 2014 · DOI

• This paper responds to this gap in knowledge with findings from a qualitative, exploratory human rights study investigating the youth-led health promotion group REACT (Resist, Expose and Challenge [big] Tobacco).

  HUMAN RIGHTS AND HEALTH PROMOTION: A CANADA FIT FOR CHILDREN? · 2011 · DOI

• Those experiencing health disparities include but are not limited to the young, the elderly, the poor, individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups, those in geographically isolated and underserved communities, those who lack access to comprehensive care, and those suffering from chronic or devastating diseases or events that impact quality of life like mental illness, AIDS, cancer, and violence.

  NIH Summit: The Science of Eliminating Health Disparities · 2009 · DOI

• It remains to be seen if Congress will recognize the CDC report as a national call to action, or whether future CDC reports will simply record the ongoing health disparities of rural America.

  A National Call to Action: CDC's 2001 Urban and Rural Health Chartbook · 2002 · DOI

• The desirability of linking this committee to the general advisory committee was not explored, due in part to the short space of time between formation of the Medical Advisory Committee and the departure of the health educator. Community representation was,limited to the director of the major visiting nurse association in the area.

  Health Education in a Hospital Setting: Report of a Public Health Service Project in Newark, New Jersey · 1974 · DOI

• Therefore, the research team concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support the contention that curricula based on the 1947 studies were seriously outmoded.

  B. Some Health-Service Oriented Studies · 1969 · DOI

• Now, having sounded words of caution and identified some of the limitathe general systems tions, what are the prospects in the utilization of approach? First, we can speculate about where this approach might lead. I t would seem that once models of the type we have been examining were refined and extended, their first application might be in the description of problems at all four levels. This could conceivably lead to the development of problem 23 typologies. To cite one example, if it were found that at all levels there are problems located at the boundary between the known and unknown regions of the system, it is likely that such problems might then be categorized as to types. An example of one such category might be those problems wherein the system is too closed to input from the unknown part of itself, a problem manifested in individuals, groups, organizations, and communities. And, if we could go this far, it should then be possible to move to the next step of developing a treatment strategy or strategies for such a problem as it is manifested a t the various levels of human organization. Secondly, there are implications in the general systems approach for analysis of situations and the diagnosis of cases. The Berkeley research group, as a way of demonstrating what might be said about social work cases through the use of their language and their models, analyzed a casework, a group work, and a community organization record.

  The General Systems Approach to the Understanding of Groups · 1962 · DOI

• : “Reconciling Conflicting Results Derived from Experi- mental and Survey Studies of Attitude Change,” T h e American Psy- chologist, 14, January 1959, 8-17.

  Decision-Making by Individuals · 1961 · DOI

• ”( 24) We all know from history that societies can seek a steady state, may be limited by their energy resources, have been restrained by external forces, or have broken down.

  The Public Health Worker as an Agent of Socio-Cultural Change · 1959 · DOI

• However, this review also reveals a notable gap in the literature - a lack of direct comparison between Appalachian and non-Appalachian rural context.

  Comparing research priorities and approaches in Appalachia and Broader Rural Health Contexts: A Scoping review · 2026 · DOI

• explicit evidence of full CBPR or deep co- governanc e engagemen t models.

  Comparing research priorities and approaches in Appalachia and Broader Rural Health Contexts: A Scoping review · 2026 · DOI

• While the welfare implications of these changes are not yet known, policymakers should consider balancing the benefits of professionalizing CBOs against the risks of medicalizing them.

  Money Moves the Mare: The Response of Community‐Based Organizations to Health Care's Embrace of Social Determinants · 2021 · DOI

• Although engagement strategies could yield benefits, limited evidence exists on best practices for engaging diverse data users and many jurisdictions have not yet transitioned to this later phase.

  Moving towards open government data 2.0 in U.S. health agencies: Engaging data users and promoting use · 2020 · DOI

• The model proved very effective, as evidenced by the group’s success in achieving a number of policy, system, and environmental changes — including expanding cessation benefits available under Medicaid in Kansas — and could be replicated by any foundation.

  Better Together: Engaging Stakeholders in Learning and Leadership to Guide Foundation Resources Toward Adaptive Systems Change · 2019 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Public Health Policies and Education

• Nature Contact and Human Health: A Research Agenda · Environmental Health Perspectives · 2017 · 1,040 citations
• Person and Place: The Compounding Effects of Race/Ethnicity and Rurality on Health · American Journal of Public Health · 2004 · 265 citations
• Addressing Social Needs in Health Care Settings: Evidence, Challenges, and Opportunities for Public Health · Annual Review of Public Health · 2020 · 258 citations
• Social Determinants of Health: Present Status, Unanswered Questions, and Future Directions · International Journal of Health Services · 2006 · 198 citations
• Work as an Inclusive Part of Population Health Inequities Research and Prevention · American Journal of Public Health · 2018 · 183 citations
• A Retrospective on Fundamental Cause Theory: State of the Literature and Goals for the Future · Annual Review of Sociology · 2021 · 170 citations
• The impact of public involvement in health research: what are we measuring? Why are we measuring it? Should we stop measuring it? · Research Involvement and Engagement · 2020 · 170 citations
• Understanding Population Health Terminology · Milbank Quarterly · 2007 · 168 citations
• The Health Equity Framework: A Science- and Justice-Based Model for Public Health Researchers and Practitioners · Health Promotion Practice · 2020 · 163 citations
• Reworking the Social Determinants of Health: Responding to Material‐Semiotic Indeterminacy in Public Health Interventions · Medical Anthropology Quarterly · 2020 · 126 citations

Most recent work

• Why Promoting Health Equity in Canada Requires a Social Movement · Community Health Equity Research & Policy · 2026
• Public Health’s Misinformation Era · NEJM Catalyst · 2026
• Transforming academia for equity: implementation at the University of Memphis · Frontiers in Public Health · 2026
• National Public Health Institutes Organizational Strengthening Module Framework: Applying Organizational Development Principles · Annals of Global Health · 2026
• Transformative public health education - are we there, yet? · Public Health Reviews · 2026
• Shaping Ethical Use of Health Data: Moving Beyond Compliance to Relational Governance in Canada · Healthcare Management Forum · 2026
• Health services, 2025 · Administration · 2026
• Faculty and staff health in context: A study of wellness culture in higher education · Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health · 2026
• Free Healthcare and Digital Infrastructure in India: Pragmatic or Ideological? · Social medicine · 2026
• Book review: One health and multispecies organizational ethnography · Journal of Organizational Ethnography · 2026

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