The CDC/Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists Applied Epidemiology Fellowship Program

Abstract

Evaluation findings support previous research indicating need for competency-based field-based training programs that include a strong mentoring component. These characteristics in a field-based training program can increase applied epidemiology capacity in various ways.

Evaluation of Field Epidemiology Training Programs in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: A Multi-country Study

“…Their impact can be most apparent in situations of con ict and crises that disrupt public health systems and especially within the current shortage of resources. Several examples have clearly showed the success of FETP in responding to emergencies and disasters (8)(9)(10)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). During the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2014 in Saudi Arabia, FETP graduates tackled numerous issues, including but not limited to, to redesigning the system to enable simultaneous real-time electronic reporting of suspected and con rmed cases to public health professionals who needed to take essential control and preventive actions on new cases (14).…”

“…There are some studies that evaluated FETPs and reported the experiences and lessons learnt. These studies showed that the training programs have contributed to the development of a skilled workforce in eld epidemiology [8][9][10].…”

The United Kingdom Field Epidemiology Training Programme: meeting programme objectives

“…The perception was that these impacts have followed not only from training new staff, but also indirectly from changing behaviours and maintaining skills within the wider field epidemiology workforce, driving adoption of innovations and service improvements, and facilitating networking. Dick et al highlighted that FETP mentors observed similar benefits, such as increasing host site capacity and enhancing their own skills and opportunities, in open comments on an evaluation survey of the career development of FETP trainees in the United States [8]. Further evidence that the final objective had been met included greater visibility of field epidemiology services within everyday practice and external confidence in the service.…”

“…In part, this may be because it can be difficult to directly measure or quantify the attributable benefits. This may be why some evaluations have focused on career trajectories as a proxy for organisational impact [8,15,29]. However, while important, particularly to flag organisational accountability issues if graduates are not finding jobs, employment does not necessarily mean that graduates’ learning prepared them for their new posts or was of additional benefit to stakeholders.…”

“…Others report evaluations of processes, such as the number of fellows trained, activities undertaken and/or graduate outcomes, e.g. perceived confidence in key aspects of practice, number of papers published and/or graduate career goals/trajectories [8-16]. Some of these have been used as indicators to monitor the progress of different FETPs [17].…”