Consulting Services

Training and Curriculum Development | Technical Assistance | Research

The UNC Center for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) is dedicated to improving the capacity of public health agencies and their staff through research, educational programs, and technical assistance. UNC CPHP offers consulting services to local, state, national, and international public health agencies.

Training and Curriculum Development

UNC CPHP will undertake specific curriculum development and training projects upon request. Working with partner agencies, UNC CPHP has experience developing public health trainings in multiple modalities for audiences at all different levels with particular expertise in field and applied epidemiology as well as disaster mental health. We have proven experience in developing distance learning programs. In recent years, UNC CPHP has contracted with international, national, and state partners to provide curriculum development for a wide variety of projects.

Our trainings:

include both face-to-face and distance learning formats (Web, video, CD-ROM),
have varying ranges of interactivity to match a target audience's technical skills/capabilities, and
address different levels of cognitive learning (knowledge, application and synthesis level) appropriate for a wide range of audiences.

Learn more about the UNC CPHP distance learning strategy and review examples of some of our work through our distance learning demonstration sites or through the training examples below.

Projects for state and local health departments

Training courses for local health department staff related to specific responsibilities for pandemic influenza planning; communicable disease surveillance, investigation, and reporting; core responsibilities for preparedness coordinators; and electronic disease surveillance system use.
Self-guided training programs for local health department staff designed to build awareness of the psychosocial consequences of disasters, integrate use of the Incident Command System (ICS) in common public health department activities, teach basic epidemiology, and improve epidemiology team functionality.
Curriculum development and training to assist with roll-out of a new online disease reporting system for local health departments.
Training needs assessments and workforce development initiatives.

Projects for federal and international agencies

Revision of the CDC's foundational courses in forensic epidemiology and public health law.
A curriculum for training avian influenza rapid response teams in Southeast Asia.
Overall curriculum design and development of specific course modules for a CDC field epidemiology training program in Central America.
Development of a influenza laboratory epidemiology and surveillance curriculum for laboratorians working in National Influenza Centers throughout Central, Latin, and South America, and the Caribbean.
Development of customized distance-based learning readiness assessments to determine e-learning readiness, capacity and capability of potential learners in domestic and international settings, including countries with limited resources.

UNC CPHP can develop courses based on your organization's specific training needs and audience. To learn more, please contact us at cphp@unc.edu.

Technical Assistance

UNC CPHP offers technical assistance to state and local public health agencies and other community partners upon request as part of CDC-funded activities with partner states, as well as through independent contracts.

Examples of technical assistance offered by UNC CPHP include:

Assisting state and local public health agencies with data collection and spatial analysis projects related to emergency preparedness or other community-wide or regional public health concerns through the UNC CPHP Spatial Health Assessment and Research Program (SHARP).
Workforce surge capacity for outbreak investigations, community health assessments and surveillance activities as part of UNC CPHP's Team Epi-Aid.
Development of online toolkits such as the one developed to help local health departments in North Carolina develop emergency plans for at-risk groups in their communities.
Data analysis as part of county and regional surveillance reports.
Guidance and support for workforce development assessment and facilitation of training conferences for public health staff.
Support of pandemic influenza planning at the local health department level.
Development of sampling guidelines for use in public health assessments.

To learn more about UNC CPHP's technical assistance activities or to request assistance, please contact cphp@unc.edu.

Research

To learn more about UNC CPHP's research activities, please view our research page or contact cphp@unc.edu.