Background: “Assure a competent public and personal health care workforce” is the eighth of the ten essential public health services. Cross-cutting competencies toward a competent workforce include leadership, systems thinking and communication. Since leadership is such a broad area, more research needs to be conducted in order to determine where to prioritize training and workforce needs for public health. This research focuses on the relationship between the emotional intelligence of the supervisor and conditions of trust among staff at the Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH). Currently, no research exists looking at the relationship between emotional intelligence and trust in a public health setting.

Methods: Using survey methodology and quantitative analysis, the study participants are the branch managers (24 eligible) and the staff (115 eligible) who report directly to the branch managers at KDPH. The branch managers take the BarOn EQ-i® in order to measure their emotional intelligence (EQ), which includes an overall EQ score, 5 scales and 15 subscales. The staff who report directly to the branch managers take the Conditions of Trust inventory, which has eleven conditions. The data collection will be completed in March 2010.

Results: Results will be forthcoming in May 2010. The data will be analyzed by age and gender for the supervisors who take the BarOn EQ-i® and will be analyzed by age, gender, race/ethnicity and years of service in the branch, KDPH and their overall years in public health. The relationship between the EQ among supervisors and trust among staff will be analyzed.

Conclusions and Potential Implications: Depending upon the results, this research could provide training and workforce development opportunities for KDPH as well as for other public health settings.