The Public Health Service (PHS) in Germany has had difficulties in recruiting enough
qualified staff for years, but there is limited research on what factors drive decisions to (not) join
the PHS workforce. We explored reasons for this perceived (lack of) attractiveness. We conducted
two cross-sectional surveys among medical students (MS), public health students and students from
other PHS-relevant fields (PH&ONM) in Germany before (2019/2020) and during the COVID-19
pandemic (2021). Both waves surveyed self-reported reasons for why students did (not) consider
working in the PHS as attractive and how this could be improved, using open-question items. Qual-
itative and quantitative content analyses were conducted according to Mayring. In total, 948 MS
and 445 PH&ONM provided valid written responses. Reasons for considering the PHS as attractive
were, among others, the perception of a good work-life balance, high impact, population health
focus, and generally interesting occupations. Suggestions to increase attractiveness included reducing
bureaucracy, modernization/digitalization, and more acknowledgement of non-medical profession-
als. Among MS, reasons against were too little clinical/patient-related activities, low salary, and
occupations regarded as boring. Our findings indicate areas for improvement for image, working
conditions in, and institutional structures of the PHS in Germany to increase its attractiveness as an employer among young professionals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:90350 |
| Date | 06 March 2024 |
| Creators | Arnold, Laura, Kellermann, Lisa, Fischer, Florian, Hommes, Franziska, Jung, Laura, Mohsenpour, Amir, Strati, Jan M. |
| Publisher | MDPI AG |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 1661-7827, 1660-4601, 10.3390/ijerph191811733 |
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