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Short Courses and Workshops
The following short courses were offered specifically geared to train
and develop collaborations with researchers and students in the various
countries:
Pesticide Health and Safety - India
In November 2002 a two-day workshop was conducted on pesticide health
and safety. Organized by COEH Delhi, it was attended by 25 participants,
mostly mid-career professionals from around India. The course was led by
experts from the US and India and
provided an overview of current policy issues and their health
implications.
Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology Workshop - India
This workshop was conducted in December 2003. Participants included
other Fogarty recipient institutions in India along with other
professionals. The first six days focused on principles of epidemiology and
was attended by 25 participants from Delhi,
Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai,
Nepal, and Chandigarh.
The second week was limited to the ITREOH IAP groups from Chennai, Delhi, Nepal,
and Chandigarh,
and their time was spent designing protocols, proposals, and study
instruments for a multi-site IAP and TB case-control study to take place in
each institution. This exercise was the impetus to design and initiate the
epidemiologic study involving indoor air pollution and TB. Each institution
determined their needs for obtaining funds to conduct the research outside
of the Fogarty grant.
Recent Developments in Occupational and Environmental
Health – India
This week-long workshop was conducted in March of 2005. The focus of the
workshop was to familiarize healthcare professionals and leaders from
industry of the importance of and need to set priorities with regards to
environmental and occupational health. The courses were presented by an
international group of experts in the fields of environmental and
occupational health, with experiences specific to India. The
purpose was two-fold: to provide the tools to implement best practices in
the areas of environmental and occupational health, particularly important
in the region given India’s considerable economic growth and
industrialization; and minimize health risks associated with environmental
and occupational hazards. The need for such activities was documented in
the ITROEH-related paper by Joshi and Smith (Joshi and Smith 2002) .
Environmental Health Issues for Clinicians
This weeklong workshop held in April 2006 targeted physicians and other
public health specialist to provide training in key issues related to
environmental health at the national level in India. As there are limited
options for public health training currently in India, courses such as this
are critical to pushing forth a much needed public health curriculum for
clinicians and public health professionals. The majority of the
attendees—75% of the 40 participants—were physicians, while the
remaining participants worked in occupational and industrial hygiene
settings.
Basic and Molecular Epidemiology, Environmental Health,
Arsenic, Exposure and Risk Assessment
The training involved participants from institutions in seven Asian
countries, including other Fogarty ITREOH program sites: India, Bangladesh, Nepal,
Vietnam (ITREOH
collaborators), Pakistan
(ITREOH collaborators), Iran,
and Sri Lanka.
Twenty-eight participants were selected from over 70 applicants based on a
scoring system considering prior experience in environmental health as well
as future goals for research in environmental epidemiology. The faculty
came from the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley,
(Drs. Allan Smith, Kirk Smith, Martyn Smith, Ondine
von Ehrenstein), University of Washington,
Seattle, (Dr. Dave Kalman), and the Indian Institute for Chemical Biology, Kolkata (Drs. Ashok Giri, Arin
Basu). Areas covered included epidemiological
study design, arsenic exposure assessment and laboratory analyses,
molecular epidemiology, and environmental health risk assessment. In
addition to the lectures, the training focused on small mentored group
projects in which the participants designed their own epidemiological
studies. These were presented by each group and discussed with all
participants at the end of the course. During the daily team work, faculty
discussed intensively with the groups all aspects related to designing and conducting
the different epidemiological studies developed by the participants. During
the course, demonstrations of Epi Info also
covered aspects of data entry, checking, and basic analyses (distributions,
correlations, regressions, etc.).
Exchange among the participants and with the
international faculty has been encouraged following the course. This is
also facilitated by a special website that was set up for the course, and
an email list-serve. There have been discussions and planning regarding
current and future epidemiological studies conducted by some participants
in their home countries during and after the course. An important outcome
of the training was that several participants have been selected as
trainees jointly with the IICB for longer term training within the future
ITREOH program.
Occupational Lung Diseases
In October 2003, a week-long international workshop on recognition,
diagnosis and management of pneumoconiosis and other related lung disorders
was organized by SRMC in collaboration with the World Health Organization.
The workshop was devoted to training occupational physicians working in the
cement, mining and heavy industry sectors on ILO “B” reader
methods of recognition and evaluation of pneumoconiosis. A library of chest
X-rays from more than 100 cases were collected and digitized, and the
course module is now available for routine repeat administration. Support
from the Fogarty grant was utilized for Indian faculty to develop the
course modules in collaboration with the international faculty.
 
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