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The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access published online on April 4, 2007
The European Journal of Public Health, doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckm031
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

Are public health physicians fading out of management?

Betty J. Pettersen1 and Dag Hofoss1,2

1 Institute of community medicine, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway and Næringsparken, Norway.
2 Akershus University Hospital, N-1478 Lørenskog, and Institute of community medicine, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway.

Correspondence: Betty J. Pettersen, MD, MPH, Institute of community medicine, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway and Næringsparken, POB 243, N-8376 Leknes, Norway; tel: 47 76 05 43 52, fax: 47 76 08 20 06, email: betty{at}poseidon.no

Received July 6, 2005 , accepted March 5, 2007

Background: Recent developments in health services in the local arena in Norway have challenged the theoretical and applied scientific basis for both public health medicine and management. During the 1990s although public health physicians in Norway increased in number, they worked less with public health, as well as public health management. The effects of these developments on public health management are largely unknown. We studied public health physicians’ involvement in management and their self-reported managerial competence. Methods: Cross-sectional study of physicians working in local public health medicine in all Norwegian municipalities, using a mail-back questionnaire. Results: Public health physicians reduced their administrative tasks and evaluated their own managerial competence rather conservatively and somewhat lower in 1999 than in 1994. Many had supplementary training in management in addition to their medical education and specialty training. Conclusions: Public health physicians may be fading out of management. To address this there is a need for development of both public health management training programmes and provision of adequate resources for managerial activities.

Keywords: management, managerial skill, physicians, public health, self-evaluation


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