Team Epi-Aid: A 5-year evaluation of graduate student assistance with urgent public health response

In 2003, the North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness established Team Epi-Aid (TEA), a volunteer student public health response team at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. TEA provides state and local health departments with workforce surge capacity, while students gain practical public health experience. TEA is evaluated in three ways. Following each activity, health departments receiving assistance complete a partner satisfaction survey and participating students submit an activity report. In addition, students on the TEA listserv are surveyed annually about overall program satisfaction. From 2003 to 2007, 203 students contributed over 3,315 hours to 56 TEA activities, including outbreak investigations, community health assessments, and emergency preparedness and response activities. Per activity report forms (n=182), the most common tasks were data collection (62%), entry (25%), and analysis (7%). Ninety-nine percent of students would recommend the activity to others and 74% indicated the activity provided insight into applied public health. According to the annual survey (n=40), 50% of students were “very satisfied” and 45% were “somewhat satisfied” with their participation in the overall program. Among health department partners (n=31), 71% were “very satisfied” and 26% were “somewhat satisfied” with their TEA experience. Eighty-seven percent agreed that TEA met its goal of providing surge capacity to local and state health departments, and 97% would request TEA assistance again. Based on five years of evaluation data, TEA has effectively achieved its goals of providing public health workforce surge capacity and offering opportunities for students to gain practical experience.