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It’s been another active month which has seen the start of the long awaited Frontline training program. The intermediate programs continue in PNG and Solomon Islands, as does the RRT training program. There's a lot on the go; here are some highlights. Enjoy.

The first Frontline FETP cohort in West New Britain, PNG

HIGHLIGHTS

• The first workshop of the first Frontline FETP cohort is done! With thanks to the Global Fund and the Centre for Health Security, the Frontline FETP program is officially underway. This program was co-designed with our PNG counterparts and the resultant curriculum is truly one of a kind. It uses a OneHealth approach with a community engagement focus. It’s been completely contextualised to the PNG setting and uses virtually no PowerPoints. Instead, fellows engage in highly interactive case studies and discussion based activities as they work through a program workbook with support from mentors. They are now in the field applying their skills. West New Britain is the first of 4 provinces piloting the frontline FETP in PNG.

• 9th Cohort of Intermediate FETPNG has just finished their second workshop. They have successfully completed their field projects and are now back in the field to implement their interventions. This cohort is unique in that it’s comprised of almost all senior public health officials (Provincial Disease Control Officers) from the Provincial Health Authorities. This program is taught by our senior and junior PNG faculty.

UPCOMING

• Solomon Islands Cohort 2, Workshop 2

• The rapid response team (RRT) training programme in PNG continues to progress. The national team recently completed an after-training review in Lae, Morobe Province. In the remaining weeks of 2022, the team plans to undertake initiation training with eight provinces after which, Phase 1 of the RRT training program will have been completed in all 22 provinces.

• Next Frontline FETP pilot province to launch - West Sepik follows West New Britain in starting their own provincially run Frontline FETP. The first workshop kicks off in November.

• FEiA is working on a technical manual for field epidemiologists. The manual will be available soon, watch this space! The manual will contain:

  • A glossary of key field epi terms

  • Case studies tailored to the Pacific on public health surveillance, outbreak response, epi concepts, operational research and public health interventions

  • Templates and tools to support field epis

INTERACTIVE LEARNING SESSIONS at TEPHINET 2022

Centering Women in the Planning and Delivery of Field Epidemiology Training Programs ILS delivered by Rachel Mather.

We hosted 3 Interactive Learning Sessions (ILS) at TEPHINET Conference 2022 in September. You can now access the a short summary as well as the resources from each session in our latest blog.

If you joined us, please stay in touch and if you weren’t able to make it, we would love to connect and share resources with you from each of the sessions.

ADVANCED

The first advanced FETPNG cohort is done and dusted. It was a marathon effort, starting just before the pandemic in Nov 2019 and finishing Sep 2022. The fellows did exceptionally well, maintaining their studies and field projects while leading pandemic response efforts. The fellows each completed a post-training evaluation survey, here are some highlights:

• 17 fellows who graduated

  • collectively investigated 55 outbreaks (42 of which they were lead investigators)

  • completed 34 surveillance evaluations

  • completed 17 operational research projects

  • implemented and evaluated 17 evidence based interventions

  • wrote 17 policy briefs based on their intervention findings

• 82% were involved in the COVID-19 response

The fellows had lots of constructive feedback on how to improve the program. They expressed the need for further training on analysing and interpreting data, especially from analytic studies. When asked what ongoing support would be most beneficial to them now, here’s how they responded (in order of priority):

1. Additional training courses

2. FETPNG manual summarizing key field epidemiology content

3. Modest budget to support interventions

4. Ongoing mentoring

5. More supportive management

6. Short refresher videos on key field epidemiology skills

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“I was a clinical HEO only dealing with sick and that's it. No idea on the importance of data and research. Since having Field Epidemiology Training, I excelled in leadership and understood the importance of data and evidence based decisions to prioritize public health activities. The training has done big to my career and have moved me from clinician to public health program at the province and now looking after the district public health program. It improved my speaking and leadership skills and to identify problems that affected communities. I now can plan well and attend to solve issues writing reports and identify outbreaks”

- aFETPNG fellow at district level

RESOURCES

Here at FEiA, we love to make the resources that we develop for our programs freely available for use by our field epidemiologist colleagues around the world. We encourage FETPs to please use and adapt any of our materials for your own context. Please let us know if you use any of them - we would appreciate hearing if they were useful, and how we could improve them. We endeavour to continue to add to our collection of resources over time, so please check back in on our Resources tab to see what new tools we have to share each month.

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

The FEiA team says farewell to Steph as she heads off on parental leave. Steph is an incredible epidemiologist who’s been with the team since 2019.