Student Surge Capacity for Outbreak Investigation (Team Epi!)

To protect the public's health, public health response to large disease outbreaks requires many interviews conducted quickly for case investigation. However, the size or number of outbreaks may easily exceed ability of health department staff to investigate. To assist our local health department (The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene) the Student Surge Capacity for Outbreak Investigation (Team Epi) program was developed to recruit graduate public health and professions students to augment staff for outbreak investigation. Such students have the basic knowledge of diseases and the ability to communicate about them. By providing interview assistance, Team Epi participants free up health department staff to focus on more specialized needs (e.g., data analysis, interpretation of findings, intervention planning), as well as maintaining essential services. The overall goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of implementing student based volunteers to enhance outbreak investigations and measure their impact from both the volunteer and organizational perspectives. Since its start in 2004, this program has successfully recruited and trained approximately 300 students. The program model includes initial hands-on epidemiological training of students through case interviewing, investigation protocols, disease surveillance, and related public health preparedness topics before starting as volunteers. Advantages of using graduate health professions students to enhance the public health workforce during a public health emergency, as well as the reactions of the students, will be discussed. Finally, best practices and relevant issues with recruitment and retention will be presented.