Public health nursing
Your role
As a public health nurse, you can work in a variety of clinical and community settings, such as:
- public health units alongside a team of health professionals
- immunisation services
- disease control clinics, including sexual health and tuberculosis.
What you’ll do
Depending on your role and where you’re working, you might:
- monitor and manage programs to stop diseases from spreading
- respond to disease outbreaks, and do contact tracing
- provide advice to care for patients with food-borne, blood-borne and vector-borne (transmitted by mosquitos) illnesses and sexually transmitted infections
- set up and run immunisation programs
- do population-level health promotion, teaching people how to stay healthy and avoid getting sick.
Read more about a career in nursing.
Qualifications
There are different pathways you can take to become a public health nurse, depending on where you work.
Public health unit
To work in a public health unit, you must have the right qualifications in public health and experience. These roles generally start at Nurse Grade 7 but may also be available at Nurse grade 6 in some places.
Other public health services
Opportunities are also available to work in areas like sexual health and tuberculosis clinics. These roles generally start at Nurse Grade 5 or 6.
You must also be registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency for registered nursing roles.
Read more about nursing career pathways.
Wages
Your pay will depend on your classification and employment status. Read our nursing wage rates.
How to apply
We advertise all our jobs on the Queensland Government SmartJobs website. We also have information about the application process.
Public health physicians and medical officers
We also employ medical practitioners in public health, including doctors in training. Becoming a medical practitioner in public health follows the usual career path for medical officers, but it can differ depending on the person and the specialty.
Specialist public health physicians may work in public health units. Medical officers in the following specialties may also provide public health services:
- sexual health medicine
- infectious diseases
- clinical radiology (like in BreastScreen Queensland)
- pathology.
You must also be registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency for all medical officer roles. Learn more about medical careers.