About EngenderHealth’s Online Courses
Thanks to a generous grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in 1998 EngenderHealth initiated a multiyear pilot project to deliver Web-based training to reproductive health staff working in health facilities in the developing world.
The goals of the project are:
- To develop, test, and produce interactive, multimedia products that can extend training capacity for reproductive health workers
- To begin working toward the institutionalization of technology-based approaches to training in partnership with national and local health care institutions
EngenderHealth’s self-instructional online courses are available online free of charge.
Infection Prevention online course
A full Infection Prevention course (launched on March 31, 1999) covers topics critical to reducing nosocomial infection in developing world health institutions. The self-instructional version of the course provides more than eight hours of instruction for a single learner. An instructor-led version of the course (first field-tested in Summer 1999) allows a trainer to communicate electronically with a far-flung group of users over a period of weeks or months. This type of application is ideal both as an additional resource for programs at universities and other educational facilities and as a resource for those who do not have local access to other forms of training.
Thousands of people have used this course since it was first launched, and countries represented by this group have included Colombia, Republic of Georgia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Tanzania, Thailand, and Zambia. Of identifiable users, most are medical professionals, such as nurses and doctors, and one-third of users are from regions of the world with a large number of developing nations (16% Asia, 9% Africa, 6% Latin America/Caribbean, 4% Middle East).
EngenderHealth is continuing to refine the course, and a Spanish translation of the course is now available.
EngenderHealth’s minicourses
Based on the success of the infection prevention course, EngenderHealth began developing a series of Web-based minicourses designed to provide practical information on issues of critical importance to reproductive health services. Courses on Sexuality and Sexual Health, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), and HIV and AIDS are currently available.
The minicourses are designed to give providers of reproductive health services a basic introduction to a range of topics that will help them better assess clients’ needs, be more sensitive to the issues that underlie clients’ risks and decisions, and promote awareness of what it means to be “reproductively healthy.”
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