Postdoctoral fellow Sarah Anoke, PhD ’17, and professor Marcello Pagano are directing the McGoldrick Professional Development Program in Public Health, made possible by a generous gift from Mr. John McGoldrick, a department benefactor.
This program operates under the aegis of HSPH and the Africa Research, Implementation Science, and Education (ARISE) Network, a consortium of public health education and research institutions. Educators from public health institutions across seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa will come to HSPH in December for a one-week workshop, where they will be provided with the materials and pedagogical tools to teach a quantitative health monitoring and evaluation (M&E) course at their home institutions.
Over spring 2018, the educators will liaise with co-directors Anoke and Pagano as they work together to customize the workshop materials to their specific student populations. Over summer and fall 2018, Dr. Anoke will travel to each institution to assist in the initial offering of the course in situ. This prototype will also serve as an academic undertaking, where Drs Anoke and Pagano will evaluate the hypothesis that online biostatistical courseware in population health M&E that has been customized for the cultural context of implementation is more effective than “generic” courseware.
The hope is that this “training of trainers” program will contribute to building up local biostatistical capacity helping these important quantitative tools reach more practitioners. Evaluation of the program’s efficacy will contribute to the discipline-based education research literature.
