Online Professional Training in Epidemiology for Health Managers

Overview

The Online Professional Training in Epidemiology for Health Managers is an innovative online program that is designed for public health professionals from Latin America and Spain.  Participants who are admitted into the training program complete coursework as professional education, not for academic credit, and tackle real public health problems over the course of the 9-month program. The program is conducted entirely in Spanish and participants apply for admission.

Background

In April 2001, the School signed an institutional agreement with the Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), through its Special Program for Health Analysis, to develop an internet-based professional training program in Epidemiology for Public Health Managers.  The launching of this program was in response to the recommendations of the First Regional Meeting of National Directors of Epidemiology and corresponding PAHO/WHO focal points in the Americas in the Dominican Republic in 2000.  The objective of the Program is to strengthen the capacity of middle level and senior epidemiologists in the management of public health functions.  The three main characteristics of this program are: 1) it is internet based professional training; 2) is conducted in Spanish; 3) it uses a problem-solving framework of priority health problems of the Americas as a model for advancing training of Epidemiology in public health practice. 

In 2010, this Training Program began to be offered by the School and a new Academic Consortium of JHSPH and five academic institutions in Latin America and Spain: the Universidad del Norte (Colombia); Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica de Mexico; Universidad de Brasilia (Brazil); Universidad Andres Bello (Chile); and Universidad de Barcelona (Spain).  Recently, the School of Public Health of the University of São Paulo, Brazil and the School of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico joined the academic consortium. The Program is funded by grants from the Secretaria de Vigilancia en Salud, Ministry of Health (Brazil); the Pan American Health Organization and the members of the Academic Consortium.

Program Description

The professional training program is completed in 8-9 months and it includes one in-person workshop (Problem Solving Resolution) that has been offered onsite (in Baltimore; Barranquilla, Colombia; Santiago de Chile; Brasilia; and in Barcelona, Spain), as well as three online trainings: Introduction to On-line Learning; Principles of Epidemiology for Managers and Epidemiologic Methods for Planning and Evaluation of Health Services.  In addition, during the entire program, the participants are organized into working groups to review, discuss and apply the concepts and methods of the courses to real public health problems.  Each team prepares an advanced health situation analysis of one of the five health problems selected for that cohort.  These health problems are selected from real health priorities in different countries of the Americas.  

Upon completion, participants will receive a Statement of Completion of the Professional Training in Epidemiology for Health Managers.

For more detailed information about the program in Spanish, including contact information, please click here.