A follow-up study in three African countries on the JICA training course “Health Systems Management for Regional and District Health Management Officers”

• Published in: Kokusai Hoken Iryo (Journal of International Health) Vol. 35; no. 4; pp. 247 - 257
• Main Authors: Kanda, Koji, Yoshida, Takahiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: JAPAN ASSOCIATION FOR INTERNATIONAL HEALTH 20.12.2020
• Subjects: Africa; Follow-up Study; Health Systems Management; JICA training; Regional and District Health Management Officer
• ISSN: 0917-6543
• DOI: 10.11197/jaih.35.247

Introduction  Asahikawa Medical University (AMU) has conducted a 7-week JICA training course “Health Systems Management for Regional and District Health Management Officers” since 2008 and trained a total of 132 participants from 22 countries. In order to assess how trainees applied their public health knowledge and skills obtained through the training course to their communities, we conducted interviews in Kenya, Malawi, and Liberia to explore their current public health problems and to identify what programs are required for our further training course to improve their health system.Methods  Among 29 trainees in three countries in total, 15 were face-to-face interviewed and 6 were phone-interviewed on February 2019. The rest was missing but we identified five of their current position.Results  The trainees made best use of knowledge and skills obtained from following lectures and/or field trips in their communities, such as “Project Cycle Management”, “Maternal and child health”, “Public health centers’ visit”, “Waste management including water supply and sewage treatment”, “School health”, “Tele-medicine”, and “5S-KAIZEN”. They also requested us to provide following lectures and field visits to tackle with their future health problems, such as “Japan’s experience to achieve the Universal Health Coverage”, “Health system strengthening”, “Disaster medicine and management”, “Non-communicable diseases”, and “Capacity development”.Discussion & Conclusions  By face-to-face or phone interviews in three countries, we grasped ideas of current health problems and verified an effectiveness of our training programs in each country. We also helped the trainees, their co-workers, community people (volunteers) to increase the motivation of their relevant works and activities through the field visit. Therefore, in order to provide a better training program, we further need to enhance international cooperation between us and African countries as well as to strengthen our training capacities including regular follow-up systems to ex-trainees.