Strengthening Health Professional Workforce Education Programs for Improved Quality Health care in Zambia (SHEPIZ)

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Despite the current global trends of substantial improvement of many health indicators, sub- Saharan African disease burden and public health needs have continued to rise, without a corresponding proportional and appropriate human resource response to tackle them. The poor training response is largely compounded by the critical lack of requisite appropriate academic structures especially those whose ethos is grounded on evidence and translational ideas I n d e e d Sub-Saharan Africa still remains the worst hit by the HIV epidemic with an estimated adult prevalence of 14.3% in Zambia. There is now world-wide consensus that generation of specific knowledge bases through research coupled with appropriate training and retraining programs targeted strategically through the health care systems and that focus on major national priorities has great potential to reduce the associated burden and improve major health outcomes. With this background and building on an historical array of capacity building and training programs through the University of Zambia (UNZA) Schools of Medicine (SOM) and Nursing (SON) including our partner institutions (Mulungushi University SOM, the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Zambia (CIDRZ), Vanderbilt University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of North Carolina), we propose to focus on enhancement of a health services focused multilevel research capacity building program, continued development of subspecialty trained clinicians and a multidisciplinary training quality enhancement program. In the proposed program, we hypothesize that by strengthening the clinical and research training capacity of our major national health professions training institution, the University Of Zambia School Of Medicine, the national health workforce competences will be enhanced with resultant improved health outcomes. We aim to achieve this by creating both short and mediam long term dynamic health professions clinical research training programs. It is envisioned that by end of this grant program period a number of outputs will have been realized including 1) established clinical and research training programs for the enhancement of health Professions workforce in the country with regard to HIV and none communicable Diseases (NCDs) care, 2) a critical mass of health professional specialists (medical and nursing sciences) providing health professional workforce leadership, and 3) developed e-based dynamic and innovative courses and e-learning networks for continuous professional development (CPD) country-wide.