The Carter Center Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative

The Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative was launched in 1997 by The Carter Center in partnership with the Ethiopian government. In an effort to change the grim realities of Ethiopia's overall  public health status, the initiative is making a difference in the delivery of health care throughout the country. The goal of the Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative is to contribute to improving the health of Ethiopians by enhancing the quality of pre-service training health staff receive.

For Ethiopians, the single biggest factor of poor health is lack of access to trained health personnel. The Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative is changing this by creating a corps of qualified health care workers nationwide.
 
EPHTI Develops Health Curricula

EPHTI, as a collaborative health care training program, creates opportunities in which Ethiopian teaching staff work side by side with international experts to develop curricula and learning materials based on local experience. Teachers and professors at seven Ethiopian universities use these materials to train health students, who, in turn, train and manage community health workers.
 
The seven Ethiopian universities that are part of EPHTI hold workshops to draft and produce training materials such as modules and lecture notes. Modules are topic-specific and address life-threatening diseases, longer-term health promotion, and disease prevention activities. Topics have included health care-related issues, infectious diseases, nutrition, maternal and child health, mental health, reproductive health, water and sanitation, risk behavior modification, and others. Collected from approved government curricula, lecture notes are developed for use as lesson plans within Ethiopian medical classrooms. Lecture notes and modules help to standardize the health learning material taught throughout the country and promote the improved quality of health worker graduates. To date, EPHTI has completed two instruction manuals, more than 65 training modules, and more than 120 sets of lecture notes.

EPHTI Trains Teachers

EPHTI strengthens the teaching skills of university faculty to better instruct the health professionals they train. Many faculty lack the pedagogical, writing, and supervisory training skills needed to teach their students. The initiative provides workshops, conferences, field training, and other programs to help teachers gain capacity in these areas. Since its inception, EPHTI has trained more than 1,200 faculty members.

EPHTI Trains Health Officers

In 2005, EPHTI expanded its relationship with the Ministry of Health to implement the Accelerated Health Officer Training Program in Ethiopia. As the Ethiopian government has built more health centers to serve the population's health care needs, the shortage of health care officers has increased. EPHTI will use its network of universities, with their affiliated training hospitals and regional health bureaus, and its health learning materials to facilitate this new program. The health officer is the leader of the community-based health center professional staff, and the program's objective is to train 5,000 new health officers by 2010.

EPHTI Provides Equipment to Universities

Teaching is a challenging endeavor under any circumstances, even more so without basic learning materials such as textbooks and classroom equipment. Textbooks in Ethiopia are few and far between and often outdated. EPHTI is committed to supporting the entire training process by providing locally relevant and current teaching materials as well as necessary, tangible classroom materials.

In 2007, the following classroom materials will be provided to each of the seven partnering universities:

• $150,000 USD worth of text books and reference books
• Computers, printers, and a photocopier 
• 10-15 periodical and journal subscriptions for each university
• Classroom demonstration materials and basic laboratory equipment, such as anatomical models and microscopes