Title: The Hope of Prevention Training in South Asia
1The Hope of Prevention Training in South Asia
- Dodani Sunita1, Chandrakant Pandav2, Sisira
Siribaddana3, Ronald E LaPorte 4 Paras
Pokharel5 - (1Pakistan, 2 India, 3 SriLanka, 4 USA, 5 Népal)
- South Asian Health Preventionists Association
(SAHPA) - www.pitt.edu/super1
2Prevention Training in South Asia
- Learning Objectives
- Current Health Problems in South Asia
- Overview of health training in South Asian
Countries - Power of prevention and health Prevention
training programs - Use of supercourse global health network for
building prevention training programs in south
Asia
3Prevention Training in South Asia
- The BMJ issue on Health in South Asia addressed
the current health problems. - In almost all South Asian countries (India,
SriLanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal etc) double
burden of diseases is increasing - Some of the solutions and hopes for improvement
were mentioned - This double burden is difficult for South Asian
countries who have little health means - A basic resource for health improvement was not
mentioned and that public health and prevention
4Prevention Training in South Asia
- The power of prevention world wide resulted in a
25 year increase in life expectancy. (WHO,2000)
- Almost all of this is due to prevention
- SriLanka is a best example as a developing
country - Health system in SriLanka
- Sri Lanka achievements in public health with
relatively low levels of public expenditure are
impressive - The gains in Sri Lanka are apparent with a
- 99 vaccination
- Pakistan, and India has achieved 50 of
- children vaccination against measles
5Prevention Training in South Asia
- Health system in SriLanka
- The health improvements are achieved
inexpensively with public health, prevention, an
emphasis on education in particularly womens
education. - Government commitment played a major role of
linking health care and prevention. - THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF PREVENTION
6Prevention Training in South Asia
- Health training in South Asian Countries
- In South Asia, very few are trained as
Preventionists - There are approximately 200 medical schools In
South Asia, more than 5,000 students graduate
every year - There are only 23 public heath programs providing
some training but no Schools of Public Health in
whole of South Asia -
7Prevention Training in South Asia
- There are 10-20 times more people trained in
clinical medicine than those trained in
preventive medicine - Training in public health has been neglected
- Public health protects the health of populations,
with a key emphasis on preventing disease - Medicine focuses on treating patients who are
already ill. - Little cross-fertilization
- In South Asia and other developing countries,
first step should be to train medical students
in the area of public health
8Prevention Training in South Asia
- Public health is considered a second-rated
profession - Very little emphasis is on research training in
prevention - This has resulted sparse baseline data on much
of the diseases in South Asia - Public health training in medical students can be
improved with better health prevention lectures
9Prevention Training in South Asia
- Supercourse (www.pitt.edu/super1)
- Established by Dr Ronald E LaPorte in 1996 and
currently funded by National Library of Medicine - The mission is to connect world class scientists
by sharing their best lectures and provide better
material for teaching - There are 15,000 members worldwide, 40 are from
developing countries and more than 800 are from
South Asia - This is the library of more than 1,800 lectures
from world renown scientists
10Prevention Training in South Asia
- Schools of Public Health in South Asia
- South Asian preventionists have contributed more
than 150 lectures - We can reach a large segment of population to
enrich curricula in the medical schools by using
Supercourse lectures - The cost to accomplish this would be minimal as
the content is readily available on the
supercourse for free - No cost to access lectures as majority of medical
schools are connected to the internet
11Prevention Training in South Asia
- This will not only provide free teaching
material, but also a global expertise of
thousands would be willing to help - A model of a school of public health in Pakistan
has already been developed which can be used as a
template www.pitt.edu/super1/lecture/lec11921/ind
ex.htm - Telepreventive medicine could link medical
schools in South Asia, with improved prevention
lectures and networking of those engaged
prevention.
12Prevention Training in South Asia
- Accredited Schools of Public Health
- Brick and Mortar schools of public health (like
John Hopkins Harvard) are needed to build the
upper level infrastructure for prevention and
health. - World-class schools of public health can be
built for a fraction of the cost of a hospital, a
medical school or a public health school in the
US. - Schools should be accredited to world class
standards. - These schools will compete with world-class
programs because of unique populations and type
of diseases. - Schools would be the training grounds for
Ministers of Health and leaders of public health
nationally and internationally.
13Prevention Training in South Asia
- Accredited Schools of Public Health
- Proper training in public health can
inexpensively reduce the morbidity and mortality
of diseases in South Asia. - It will also provide nations the best means for
prevention. - This will rapidly improve training of all medical
students in public health virtually for free. - The optimal approach to health in South Asia will
be to train as many individuals in preventive
medicine as those in clinical medicine. - The costs would be small, but the impact on
health, immense