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A new competency-based, field
epidemiology course for the District Surveillance Officer
of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP)
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India
is expanding its Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme
(IDSP). Meanwhile, feedback from the field suggested that a stronger capacity
to analyze data would improve capacity to use the information to make
decisions, particularly at the district level. As a response, the National
Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD) prepared a 2-week training course in
partnership with the World Bank and WHO. This competency-based programme was designed to be fully compatible with other
initiatives in field epidemiology training in India, such as the two-year Field
Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP). A pilot
version of the course was conducted with 17 district surveillance officers
from all around India from
16 to 28 July in NICD, New Delhi.
It included a two-day field exercise and a field assignment during which
participants will go back to their district and analyze surveillance data.
This pilot had several quality assurance measures, including a full
electronic documentation, pre- and post tests, an evaluation of the course by
the district officers and the participation of observers from academic
institutions in India.
Debriefing of the pilot led to a second version of the course, improved on
the basis of the feedback received. That course will now be implemented on a
larger scale in India
in collaboration with partner institutions. In the longer term, NICD
considers developing an on-line version of the course for distance learning.
Individuals or institutions that would like to take part in this implementation
can obtain the learning material of the course by contacting the central
surveillance unit of the IDSP at NICD at idsp-smo@nic.in.
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Field exercise during the
two-week course for district surveillance officers
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