- Title
- Lessons learnt from a three-year pilot field epidemiology training programme
- Creator
- Hoy, Damian; Durand, A. Mark; Gopalani, Sameer Vali; Flint, James; Merilles Jr, Onofre Edwin A.; Kashiwabara, Mina; Biaukula, Viema; Lepers, Christelle; Souares, Yvan; Nilles, Eric; Batikawai, Anaseini; Huseynova, Sevil; Hancock, Thane; Durrheim, David; Cash, Haley L.; Hardie, Kate; Paterson, Beverley; Paulino, Yvette; White, Paul; Merritt, Tony; Fitzgibbons, Dawn
- Relation
- Western Pacific Surveillance and Response Journal Vol. 8, Issue 3, p. 21-26
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.5365/wpsar.2016.7.4.005
- Publisher
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Problem: The Pacific region has widely dispersed populations, limited financial and human resources and a high burden of disease. There is an urgent need to improve the availability, reliability and timeliness of useable health data. Context: The purpose of this paper is to share lessons learnt from a three-year pilot field epidemiology training programme that was designed to respond to these Pacific health challenges. The pilot programme built on and further developed an existing field epidemiology training programme for Pacific health staff. Action: The programme was delivered in country by epidemiologists working for Pacific Public Health Surveillance Network partners. The programme consisted of five courses: four one-week classroom-based courses and one field epidemiology project. Sessions were structured so that theoretical understanding was achieved through interaction and reinforced through practical hands-on group activities, case studies and other interactive practical learning methods. Outcome: As of September 2016, 258 students had commenced the programme. Twenty-six course workshops were delivered and one cohort of students had completed the full five-course programme. The programme proved popular and gained a high level of student engagement. Discussion: Face-to-face delivery, a low student-to-facilitator ratio, substantial group work and practical exercises were identified as key factors that contributed to the students developing skills and confidence. Close engagement of leaders and the need to quickly evaluate and adapt the curriculum were important lessons, and the collaboration between external partners was considered important for promoting a harmonized approach to health needs in the Pacific.
- Subject
- Pacific region; disease; disease burden; health data; epidemiology; epidemiology training programme
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1395492
- Identifier
- uon:33893
- Identifier
- ISSN:2094-7321
- Rights
- © 2017 The Authors>; licensee the World Health Organization. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization, products or services. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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