The MCHB has developed a distance
learning web site which gathers all resources available from consortium
members and others on distance education. The participating universities
are the
- University of California, Berkeley,
- University of Illinois at Chicago, and
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
This consortium is part of the plan to bring together
all of the Bureau's alternative and distance education projects into
one organizational unit within the DSEA.
THE CHANGING NEEDS OF THE MCH/CSHCN COMMUNITY
Public health faces strong challenges and opportunities
for addressing the changing needs of the public health system and its
professionals. As noted in Taking Training Seriously: A Policy Statement
on Public Health Training, "...over the past decade, public
health has become an increasingly broad endeavor, fragmented by significant
specialization within and among various levels of government. By every
indication, these tendencies will become more common as health care
reform compels the discipline to expand its population-based prevention
strategies and assume new and challenging responsibilities to care for
a more diverse society. The enormous size of the public health workforce,
coupled with the increasing reliance on staff who are not formally trained
in public health, demands new and intensified training efforts to encompass
all who are involved in protecting and promoting the public's health."
During the past decade, analytic skills training for MCH/CSHCN
professionals has been acknowledged as a critical component in moving
toward fulfilling the core functions of public health. The form and
content of the training have been and are evolving rapidly in response
to the equally evolving needs of state and local health agencies.
As states reorganize the management of their MCH/CSHCN
services, one of the major issues they face is the conflict between
providing services to the population and maintaining a fiscally sound
program. Exacerbating this problem is the critical need for training
and retraining of MCH/CSHCN program staff. Many staff members
in MCH and CSHCN programs have backgrounds in social and/or clinical
services, while the demands of their job require greater data analytic
tasks and have greater computer skills. The need for retraining staff
is a heavy burden on the diminishing resources of the MCH/CSHCN programs
and a cost-effective and workable training method for increasing the
analytic skills of the staff must be found.
MEETING THE CHALLENGES
Alternative and education methodologies provide an effective
and economical means for professional staff to enhance and advance their
skills while continuing to meet their daily on-site responsibilities.
The goal of the consortium project is to develop and implement creative
utilization an application of alternative distance education opportunities
to improve the delivery of health care services to mothers and children.
The MCHB Consortium proposes to address these concerns
by using Internet-based technologies to develop cost-effective, broadly
disseminated analytic skills training targeted to state and local MCH/CSHCN
program staff.
These distance-training courses will improve the MCH community's
ability to:
- Address core functions of public health (assessment, assurance,
and policy development from a scientifically based perspective;
- Develop a systematic approach for incorporating data, directly or
indirectly, into public health decision-making and priority-setting;
- Develop a systematic approach for incorporating data, directly or
indirectly, into public health decision-making and priority-setting
- Develop logical and comprehensive data analysis plans
- Apply appropriate epidemiological, economic and statistical methods
in addressing population and program-specific service, access, utilization,
and effectiveness issues; and,
- Identify essential ingredients for the effective use of data to
improve the health women, infants, children, and adolescents in their
respective states.
THE ALTERNATIVE AND DISTANCE EDUCATION CONSORTIUM PARTICIPANTS
The University of Illinois at Chicago
Co-Project Director: Colleen Monahan, DC, MPH
Co-Project Director: Deborah Rosenberg, PhD
Maternal and Child Health Bureau Health Resources and
Services Administration
Project Officer: Aaron Favors, PhD
afavors@hrsa.dhhs.gov
University of California, Berkeley
Director, Principle Investigator: Julia A. Walsh, MD, DTPH,
Enhanced Analytical Skills
through Online Access
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Project Director: Anita M. Farel, DrPH, MSW
EDUSIT: Enhancing Data Utilization
Skills through Information Technology
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