Ijsselmuiden C B, Nchinda T C, Duale S, Tumwesigye N M, Serwadda D
Council on Health Research for Development, Geneva, Switzerland.
Bull World Health Organ. 2007 Dec;85(12):914-22. doi: 10.2471/blt.07.045526.
Literature on human resources for health in Africa has focused on personal health services. Little is known about graduate public health education. This paper maps "advanced" public health education in Africa. Public health includes all professionals needed to manage and optimize health systems and the public's health.
Data were collected through questionnaires and personal visits to departments, institutes and schools of community medicine or public health. Simple descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data.
For more than 900 million people, there are fewer than 500 full-time staff, around two-thirds of whom are male. More men (89%) than women (72%) hold senior degrees. Over half (55%) of countries do not have any postgraduate public health programme. This shortage is most severe in lusophone and francophone Africa. The units offering public health programmes are small: 81% have less than 20 staff, and 62% less than 10. On the other hand, over 80% of Africans live in countries where at least one programme is available, and there are six larger schools with over 25 staff. Programmes are often narrowly focused on medical professionals, but "open" programmes are increasing in number. Public health education and research are not linked.
Africa urgently needs a plan for developing its public health education capacity. Lack of critical mass seems a key gap to be addressed by strengthening subregional centres, each of which should provide programmes to surrounding countries. Research linked to public health education and to educational institutions needs to increase.
非洲卫生人力资源方面的文献主要关注个人卫生服务。对于公共卫生研究生教育则了解甚少。本文梳理了非洲的“高等”公共卫生教育情况。公共卫生涵盖管理和优化卫生系统及公众健康所需的所有专业人员。
通过问卷调查以及对社区医学或公共卫生系、研究所和学校的实地走访收集数据。使用简单描述性统计方法分析数据。
对于9亿多人口而言，全职工作人员不足500人，其中约三分之二为男性。拥有高级学位的男性（89%）多于女性（72%）。超过半数（55%）的国家没有任何公共卫生研究生项目。这种短缺在非洲讲葡萄牙语和法语的地区最为严重。提供公共卫生项目的单位规模较小：81%的单位员工不足20人，62%的单位不足10人。另一方面，超过80%的非洲人生活在至少有一个项目的国家，并且有六所规模较大的学校，员工超过25人。项目通常狭隘地聚焦于医学专业人员，但“开放式”项目数量在增加。公共卫生教育与研究没有联系。
非洲迫切需要制定一项发展其公共卫生教育能力的计划。缺乏足够的人员规模似乎是一个关键差距，需要通过加强次区域中心来解决，每个次区域中心都应为周边国家提供项目。与公共卫生教育及教育机构相关的研究需要增加。
