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South Africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016
In 2007, South Africa (SA) launched a field epidemiology training program (SAFETP) to enhance its capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats through training in field epidemiology. The SAFETP began as a collaboration between the SA National Department of Health (NDOH), Nationa...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6696662/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32326914 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6788-z |
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author | Reddy, Carl Kuonza, Lazarus Ngobeni, Hetani Mayet, Natalie T. Doyle, Timothy J. Williams, Seymour |
author_facet | Reddy, Carl Kuonza, Lazarus Ngobeni, Hetani Mayet, Natalie T. Doyle, Timothy J. Williams, Seymour |
author_sort | Reddy, Carl |
collection | PubMed |
description | In 2007, South Africa (SA) launched a field epidemiology training program (SAFETP) to enhance its capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats through training in field epidemiology. The SAFETP began as a collaboration between the SA National Department of Health (NDOH), National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), and the University of Pretoria (UP), with technical and financial support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2010, the CDC in collaboration with the NICD, established a Global Disease Detection (GDD) Center in SA, and the SAFETP became a core activity of the GDD center. Similar to other FETPs globally, the SAFETP is a 2-year, competency-based, applied epidemiology training program, following an apprenticeship model of ‘learn by doing’. SAFETP residents spend approximately 25% of the training in classroom-based didactic learning activities, and 75% in field activities to attain core competencies in epidemiology, biostatistics, outbreak investigation, scientific communication, surveillance evaluation, teaching others, and public health leadership. Residents earn a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) degree from UP upon successfully completing a planned research study that serves as a mini-dissertation. Since 2007, SAFETP has enrolled an average of 10 residents each year and, in 2017, enrolled its 11th cohort. During the first 10 years of the program, 98 residents have been enrolled, 89% completed the 2-year program, and of these, 76 (87%) earned an MPH degree. Of those completing the program, 88% are employed in the public health sector, and work at NICD, NDOH, Provincial Health Departments, foreign health institutions, or non-governmental organizations. In the first 10 years of the program, the combined outputs of trainees included over 130 outbreak investigations, more than 150 abstracts presented at national and international scientific conferences, more than 80 surveillance system evaluations, and more than 45 manuscripts published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The SAFETP is having an impact in building epidemiology capacity for public health in South Africa. Developing methods to directly link and measure the impact of the program is planned for the future. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6696662 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-66966622019-08-19 South Africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016 Reddy, Carl Kuonza, Lazarus Ngobeni, Hetani Mayet, Natalie T. Doyle, Timothy J. Williams, Seymour BMC Public Health Research In 2007, South Africa (SA) launched a field epidemiology training program (SAFETP) to enhance its capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats through training in field epidemiology. The SAFETP began as a collaboration between the SA National Department of Health (NDOH), National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), and the University of Pretoria (UP), with technical and financial support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2010, the CDC in collaboration with the NICD, established a Global Disease Detection (GDD) Center in SA, and the SAFETP became a core activity of the GDD center. Similar to other FETPs globally, the SAFETP is a 2-year, competency-based, applied epidemiology training program, following an apprenticeship model of ‘learn by doing’. SAFETP residents spend approximately 25% of the training in classroom-based didactic learning activities, and 75% in field activities to attain core competencies in epidemiology, biostatistics, outbreak investigation, scientific communication, surveillance evaluation, teaching others, and public health leadership. Residents earn a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) degree from UP upon successfully completing a planned research study that serves as a mini-dissertation. Since 2007, SAFETP has enrolled an average of 10 residents each year and, in 2017, enrolled its 11th cohort. During the first 10 years of the program, 98 residents have been enrolled, 89% completed the 2-year program, and of these, 76 (87%) earned an MPH degree. Of those completing the program, 88% are employed in the public health sector, and work at NICD, NDOH, Provincial Health Departments, foreign health institutions, or non-governmental organizations. In the first 10 years of the program, the combined outputs of trainees included over 130 outbreak investigations, more than 150 abstracts presented at national and international scientific conferences, more than 80 surveillance system evaluations, and more than 45 manuscripts published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The SAFETP is having an impact in building epidemiology capacity for public health in South Africa. Developing methods to directly link and measure the impact of the program is planned for the future. BioMed Central 2019-05-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6696662/ /pubmed/32326914 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6788-z Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Reddy, Carl Kuonza, Lazarus Ngobeni, Hetani Mayet, Natalie T. Doyle, Timothy J. Williams, Seymour South Africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016 |
title | South Africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016 |
title_full | South Africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016 |
title_fullStr | South Africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016 |
title_full_unstemmed | South Africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016 |
title_short | South Africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016 |
title_sort | south africa field epidemiology training program: developing and building applied epidemiology capacity, 2007–2016 |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6696662/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32326914 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6788-z |
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