Public health worker competencies for emergency response.

Emergency preparedness is an expectation of public health organizations and an expectation of individual public health practitioners. Organizational performance standards for public health agencies have been developed during the last several years, providing a foundation for the development of competency statements to guide individual practice in public health program areas, like emergency response. This article provides results from a project that developed emergency preparedness and response competencies for individual public health workers. Documentation of the qualitative research methods used, which include competency validation with the practice community, can be applied to competency development in other areas of public health practice.