Mapping Public Health (PH) Education
(Work Package 7)
 During the last thirty years many programmes in Public Health (PH) and PH related subjects have been developed in most European member states, acceding and candidate countries. These programmes include Health promotion, Public Health Nutrition, Gerontology, Epidemiology and Public Health, which are taught in different institutions such as universities or related schools. One of the main goals of all these programmes is to work in an interdisciplinary and empirical manner.
Cross-cutting efforts are rare in many of the current programmes, especially between the member states and the acceding and candidate countries. To prepare future professionals for the European market, it is mandatory to harmonize the training and to integrate areas of inequality. One of the first steps is taking an inventory of the existing study programmes.
During the first international meeting in Mainz (Germany), in March 2006, representatives of the major PH schools in EU partner and acceding countries gave an overview of their actual programmes in PH and PH related areas. There is a wide range of programmes with different topics and different kinds of certificates and degrees.
To collect more detailed information on the PH programmes a questionnaire was created by members of PHETICE. The aim of this questionnaire is to take an inventory of the already existing training in PH programmes like Master and Bachelor programmes, and other educational possibilities. The questionnaire covers the following topics: general information, description of the programme, teaching strategies, quality assessment and international co-operation. It is intended that as many PH institutions as possible will participate in this survey. In order to facilitate the dissemination and participation, ASPHER, who is also a member of the PHETICE steering committee created a web-based form of the survey.
Information for this survey was sent to about 200 institutions in 35 countries. The corresponding addresses and names of the targeted PH institutions had been collected through different networks that are more or less connected to the partners within the PHETICE committee group. The expected results, which will be published at the beginning of 2008, are the first step in developing common activities, structures and goals between the PH programmes, and the first step in improving the quality of the teaching process and the communication with PH professionals.
After analysing the survey data evidence-based information will be made available on the PHETICE website. Thus it may be possible to identify educational partners and institutions with PH programmes in member states and acceding and candidate countries.
Work package 7 (WP7) of the PHETICE team is responsible for the inventory of ongoing training in Public Health (PH) in EU partner and acceding countries (ACC), for the inclusion of ACC institutions in the European training programmes by the web-based survey and finally the inclusion of experiences from ACC institutions as one part of final guidelines for training in PH and PH related areas in Europe.
Work package 7 is coordinated by the Department of Epidemiology at the Institute of Medical Biometrics, Epidemiology and Informatics at the University Mainz. The Mainz team comprises Maria Blettner (director of the institute), Renate Schulze-Rath (WP7 coordinator), Doris Reiner (WP7 administrator) and Stephen Weinand (responsible for data management).
If you would like further information about PHETICE work package 7, please contact:
Renate Schulze-Rath, WP7 coordinator
Institute of Medical Biometrics,
Epidemiology and Informatics (IMBEI)
Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz
D-55101 Mainz
E-mail: schulzerath-at-imbei.uni-mainz.de
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