1. One Field Epidemiologist per 200,000 Population: Lessons Learned from Implementing a Global Public Health Workforce Target
- Author
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Robert E. Fontaine, Henry C. Baggett, Kashef Ijaz, Reina M Turcios Ruiz, Seymour G. Williams, and Henry Walke
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Health (social science) ,Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis ,030231 tropical medicine ,Population ,International Health Regulations ,Epidemiologists ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,Global Health ,World health ,Field (computer science) ,Disease Outbreaks ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Health Workforce ,education ,education.field_of_study ,Public health ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Monitoring and evaluation ,Workforce development ,Engineering management ,Epidemiological Monitoring ,Emergency Medicine ,Business ,Safety Research ,Public Health Administration ,Public health workforce - Abstract
The World Health Organization monitoring and evaluation framework for the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005) describes the targets for the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) indicators. For workforce development, the JEE defines the optimal target for attaining and complying with the IHR (2005) as 1 trained field epidemiologist (or equivalent) per 200,000 population. We explain the derivation and use of the current field epidemiology workforce development target and identify the limitations and lessons learned in applying it to various countries' public health systems. This article also proposes a way forward for improvements and implementation of this workforce development target.
- Published
- 2020