173150 Learning without borders: Providing online field epidemiology training in Spanish

Monday, October 27, 2008

Pia D.M. MacDonald, PhD, MPH , North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Anjum Hajat, MPH, PhD , School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Rachel A. Wilfert, MD, MPH, CPH , UNC Center for Public Health Preparedness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Lorraine K. Alexander, DrPH, MPH , North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Gloria C. Mejia, DDS, MPH, PhD , Universidad de Antioquia/Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, Medellin, Colombia
Dante D. Cáceres, DVM, MPH , Epidemiology Division, School of Public Health, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
Since 2003, the North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness (NCCPHP) has issued the bi-monthly online periodical FOCUS on Field Epidemiology, which provides a hands-on practical approach to various field epidemiology topics. This periodical has been well received and has garnered praise as a useful training tool for public health professionals. The lack of such a training tool for Spanish-speaking public health professionals is well known. To meet that training need, NCCPHP began translating FOCUS into Spanish for electronic distribution to Spanish-speaking public health professionals starting in 2004. FOCUS en Español is currently distributed via a listserv to more than 300 persons in the US and a variety of Spanish-speaking countries. NCCPHP recently conducted a survey of FOCUS en Español readers to learn how the publication is being used and by whom, the extent of further distribution, and how beneficial the trainings are to Spanish-speaking public health professionals. This presentation discusses results of the survey that specifically demonstrate how FOCUS en Español is being used to meet individual and organizational training needs by a diverse group of Spanish-speaking public health professionals. It also describes lessons learned in the process of adapting a successful English language training tool into Spanish and building an audience for this tool.

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the challenges and lessons learned in adapting a training tool into another language. 2. Understand how an online training tool meets both individual and organizational training needs. 3. Identify the key findings in evaluating an online training tool in Spanish.

Keywords: Distance Learning, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am on the editorial team for publication of Focus for Epidemiology in Spanish and will provide oversight for administration of the user survey.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.