​Does workforce training produce meaningful impact? Who is part of the public health workforce? These questions are critical to understanding the public health system and support inquires posed by the Public Health Services and Systems Research (PHSSR) Agenda. While some answers have already been posited about how public health can be structured, managed, staffed, funded, and organized, the research is far from conclusive and much more is needed. Throughout PHSSR, data that are accurate, longitudinal, and span jurisdictions are needed to help inform future research.

TRAIN, a national learning management system consisting of state agencies, federal partners, and academic institutions, committed to improving public health workforce training, offers data on the workforce that is unmatched by any other system. TRAIN offers a venue for over 650,000 learners to explore over 29,000 courses posted by more than 4,000 course providers. To bridge the available data and research opportunities, the Public Health Foundation (PHF) was awarded a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve TRAIN’s data quality, integrity, and availability. In addition to a Data Dictionary and a recorded webinar on Using TRAIN for Research: Your Guide for Using the TRAIN Datasets for Research, three datasets were developed:

1. Demographics on TRAIN Learners (2003-2011)
2. Information on TRAIN Courses and Competencies (2003-2011)
3. TRAIN Courses by Competencies and Professional Roles (2003-2011)

PHF is currently updating the datasets to make available 2012 TRAIN data. Furthermore, recognizing that the needs of PHSSR extend beyond these three datasets, PHF invites researchers to request customized data from TRAIN to meet specific needs. Requested data can include any fields in TRAIN related to workforce questions, but cannot include any potentially identifying information.

TRAIN data have already been used to inform and support PHSSR. Dr. James Bellamy compared historical workforce training data to the National Profile of Local Health Departments compiled by the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Based on the data measuring preparedness trainings and preparedness indicators, Dr. Bellamy concluded that training and preparedness are correlated.  Dr. Bellamy’s research represents an important first step in utilizing TRAIN’s data for PHSSR.  

To learn more about TRAIN’s data and how these data can be used for research, visit our PHSSR page.​​​