Building consensus on core teaching content of a digital public health curriculum: a Delphi study with public health experts in Germany

Introduction The digital transformation has substantially altered the competencies required of public health professionals. In Germany, digital public health (DiPH) content is inconsistently integrated into public health degree programs, reflecting the absence of a unified educational framework. To address this gap, this study aimed to establish expert consensus on core teaching content for a DiPH curriculum tailored to public health education in Germany. Methodology A multi-stage Delphi study was conducted between May 2024 and May 2025, involving public health experts from various public health settings to address scientific and practice-related expertise. Three online Delphi rounds were conducted. Experts rated the relevance of predefined and participant-generated teaching content on a 9-point Likert scale. Consensus was defined a priori as a mean score ≥7.0. Teaching content was iteratively included, excluded, or re-evaluated across rounds and clustered into eleven predefined public health topic