Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #111139

Thomas Reischl, PhD, Health Behavior & Health Education, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 109 Observatory Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, 734 763-5568, reischl@umich.edu and Amy Sarigiannis, MPH, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, 400 NIB, Room 4155 SON, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0482.

This presentation describes how the Michigan Academic Center for Public Health Preparedness (MI-CPHP) responded to the challenge and urgency in delivering competency-based preparedness training and documenting its impact utilizing a responsive evaluation approach. We provide an overview of how emergency preparedness courses are developed to enhance specific preparedness competencies. We describe the development of pretest-posttest evaluation designs to document the impact of training activities on knowledge and competency gains and how we use posttest-only evaluation designs were used for shorter awareness training activities. The development of evaluation instruments is described with a focus on being responsive to the specific goals of each training activity. We noted statistically significant improvements by course participants in key content knowledge and self-rated competencies. Responses on open-ended questions provided participants' perspectives on how the training activities improved specific knowledge and skills. The impact of taking a pretest revealed a modest, but statistically significant effect on the self-rated competencies and a non-significant effect on the content knowledge scores. The participants rated the comprehensive courses highly on a number of dimensions. A summary of the results and their implications is followed by a discussion about taking a responsive approach to evaluation the training activities of the MI-CPHP. We also review the challenge of evaluating the impact of knowledge-focused training activities on the development of performance competencies.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participants will be able to

• Describe the concepts and purpose of competency-based training for public health emergency preparedness. 2.Describe the development of responsive evaluation methods for assessing the impact of emergency prepareness courses for public health workers. 3.Evaluate the impact of competency-based training for public health emergency preparedness.

Keywords: Training, Evaluation

Related Web page: mipreparedness.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.