A globally networked hybrid approach to public health capacity training for maternal health professionals in low and middle income countries

摘要

BackgroundMundoComm is a current NIH-funded project for sustainable public health capacity building in community engagement and technological advances aimed at improving maternal health issues. Two to four teams are selected annually, each consisting of three healthcare professionals and one technical person from specific low and middle income countries (LMICs) including Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, and other LMICs. MundoComm is a course with three parts: in-person workshops, online modules, and mentored community engagement development. Two annual 1-week on-site “short courses” convened in Costa Rica are supplemented with six monthly online training modules using the Moodle® online platform for e-learning, and mentored project development. The year-long course comprises over 20 topics divided into the six modules - each module further segmented into 4 week-long assignments, with readings and assigned tasks covering different aspects of community-engaged interventions. The content is peer reviewed by experts in the respective fields from University of Rochester, UCIMED in Costa Rica, and faculty from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic who maintain regular contact with the trainees to mentor learning and project progress. The purpose of this paper is to report the first year results of the MundoComm project.