Preparing the workforce for public health and development efforts in the African region

Background: The Community Tool Box (CTB) is a free, online resource that provides people with tools for planning public health and development efforts. It is used globally, with 60% of its 4.5 million unique visitors from outside the U.S. A particular challenge for international NGOs is securing resources for capacity building, particularly in Africa. Culturally-sensitive tools for addressing public health and development are needed by global health partners.

 Implementation: The World Health Organization in the African Region (WHO-AFRO) has adopted the CTB as one of four key Health Promotion Strategies. As a WHO Collaborating Center, the University of Kansas team identified global health tools for planning public health and development efforts. Using WHO-AFRO’s Framework—these tools are then placed on the WHO-AFRO website as a Mash-Up of tools. This provides public health practitioners with free access to culturally-relevant and problem-specific guides for taking action. Qualitative data of the CTB online traffic—using Google Analytics—will provide an indicator of success in dissemination.

 Results:

Preliminary data suggests there are differences in accessing the tools among countries based on their language, geographic location, and other country-specific factors. There is a significant increase in utilization of CTB tools in English-speaking countries, but far less use in French-speaking countries. Due to the recent Arabic translation, the CTB has seen an increase in Arabic-speaking North Africa.

 Conclusion:

This results suggests that easy access to culturally-specific capacity-building online tools catalyze the planning of public health and development efforts. Addressing language-barriers can reduce disparities between African countries.