The University of Minnesota has joined an international partnership of schools to combat zoonotic diseases, like Ebola, under a new five-year, $50 million award. The initiative, called One Health Workforce, is part of a new United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program focusing on disease surveillance, healthcare worker training and outbreak response.
The program will bolster the One Health Central and Eastern Africa Network and South East Asia One Health University Network, which are supported through collaboration with the University of Minnesota and Tufts University.
UMN’s David Chapman is a primary lead for the One Health Workforce project and is collaborating with University faculty Katey Pelican and John Deen to oversee work from the medicine, nursing, public health, education and development, environmental health and veterinary medicine programs.
“These global partnerships will create a new generation of skilled health workers needed to battle infectious disease threats, like Ebola, in the world’s most vulnerable communities,” said Pelican. “We’re helping our colleagues be ready to respond with sustainable models that maintain change long into the future.”
The interdisciplinary Tufts University team is expected to bring expert knowledge in global infectious disease of humans and animals, environmental health, training in higher health education and research methodologies, and internet technology.
The combined expertise from both universities comprises the “one health” concept – an approach to health that recognizes the wellbeing of animals, humans and the environment are intertwined.
The university networks and partners, will work with in-country government ministries to define the one health workforce and determine the competencies, knowledge, and skills required in professional practice, and in undergraduate and graduate education. From there, curricula, training modules, field experiences, and other teaching and learning opportunities will be established to ensure that future graduates are prepared to address disease detection, response, prevention and control challenges.
“Together we will create a positive impact on the community and, indeed, on the profession,” said William Bazeyo, dean of the Makerere University School of Public Health in Kampala, Uganda and One Health Central and Eastern Africa Network lead. “Now is an especially critical time as we face off against emerging potential epidemics, and we will need to work together to quickly get policy makers on our side, to be able to excel at creating the needed one health workforce.”
~ Information in this post was derived from an Academic Health Center media release
