Epidemiology training initiatives in the English-speaking Caribbean: preliminary evaluation - abstract

ABSTRACT

An important mandate of the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre, (CAREC) is the development of epidemiological capacity among member states. From 1979 to 1985, the Centre received a USAID grant for epidemiology training. However, migration, promotion and other demands led to a subsequent decline in overall epidemiological capacity. The call to renew training activities came from CAREC's Scientific Advisory Committee in 1990 and from Caribbean National Epidemiologists in 1991. Technical assistance was secured from the Emory School of Public Health, funded by the Fogarty International Center (NIH), while financial support was provided by the British Development Division in the Caribbean (BDDC), in late 1992. The resulting programme includes three operational objectives: to strengthen epidemiological skills for disease surveillance; outbreak investigation; evaluation of screening methods and to conduct community surveys; to increase knowledge of and facilitate experience with the design, organization and implementation of field research, questionnaire design data collection; and to increase microcomputer knowledge and skills for data analysis and interpretation. The programme applies adult education principles within a series of workshops and complementary field study activities. Trining activities commenced in the second quarter of 1993, and over 60 individuals had participated by the end of the year. Several evaluation instruments reveal positive outcomes in each of three sites to date. Major gains in knowledge have been demonstrated in pre/post-course testing. Multiple regression analysis reveals that the strongest predictor of post-course performance (including epidemiology, statistics, and computing) is pre-course performance in computing (AU)