ECDC Virtual Academy (EVA)

 Methods and tools for evidence-based public health with a focus on infectious disease epidemiology, prevention, and control (two courses offered in 2024).

Duration: 24th  – 27 September 2024 (4 days).

Location:  In person courses at ECDC, Stockholm.

Audience: The workshops are offered to ECDC staff and colleagues of different professional backgrounds and levels working at national and sub-national public health institutions in the EU/EEA countries, and especially recommended to experts involved in the development and provision of public health risk assessments, and public health guidelines/guidance documents. The workshop is targeted at beginners in the field of evidence-based practice, and prior knowledge in in this field is not needed. However, basic knowledge in epidemiology (e.g., different study designs) has proven to be helpful to fully benefit from the workshop.

The 4-day in person courses include in addition plenty of tips and examples, mainly taken from the area of ECDC’s remit, i.e. infectious disease epidemiology, prevention and control, as well as practical exercises in small groups and Q&A sessions. 

Objectives:  At the end of the workshop the participants will:

• Understand the meaning and implications of evidence based public health (EBPH) and evidence-based decision-making (EIDM) and be able to give an own definition;
• Be able to describe different review types as well as the characteristics and key elements of a systematic review incl. the differences between systematic reviews and meta-analyses; 
• Have performed all relevant steps of a systematic review themselves; 
• Have enhanced their critical appraisal and risk of bias assessment skills; 
• Know how to get from evidence to recommendations, assess and grade the level of evidence and the strength of recommendations, and develop evidence-based guidelines/guidance; 
• Have been equipped with plenty of hands-on tips and a set of checklists, tools and information sources for further reading and study.
  
  

Participation: Selected partipants only.

The EU Initiative on Health Security aims to strengthen partner countries’ capacities to assess, detect, respond and prevent threats from communicable diseases, as well as enhance regional cooperation. 

This workshop on contact tracing is part of the initiative’s efforts to address preconditions for efficient public health systems. It provides an introduction to outbreak investigation, contact tracing and data collection, isolation and quarantine, and describe how the data can be used to mitigate the spread of infectious diseases. The course will mainly elaborate on practical aspects of data collection but will also touch upon ethical and data protection aspects. Participants will gain experience using the free open source WHO tool Go.Data, which supports collection of case data, contact data, laboratory and clinical data and contact follow-up information.

Dates and duration: 4-5 June 2024

Audience: The training is designed for representatives of public health authorities with previous experience of contact tracing and outbreak investigation (related to COVID-19 or any other infectious disease outbreak), who use or plan to use Go.Data and who are willing to cascade their knowledge to others after the training. 

Participants will have to bring their own computer and charger.

Objectives: TBD After completing this training, participants should be able to: 

• Recognise the importance of case investigation and contact tracing
• Describe the main contact tracing processes and procedures
• Discuss practical and ethical considerations around contact tracing, isolation and quarantine, and outbreak investigation
• Explain the principles of cross-border contact tracing and some international procedures
• Apply the main functions of Go.Data, using ECDC’s installation of the tool

Participation: This training is not open for self-enrolment. Participation is through invitation only.

Providing specific training to strengthen preparedness in European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) countries is a cornerstone for tackling unexpected or uncommon health threats with cross-border potential, especially when their origin is unknown. Consequently, ECDC jointly with Europol developed this training programme to strengthen capacities and capabilities to deal with threats from accidental or intentional release of biological agents. The course has been conceived with a regional approach involving countries according to their geographic location, to facilitate the establishment of “preparedness partnerships” between neighbouring countries. The course has been conceived as a training-of-trainers project, to provide competences that could be utilised by the countries enabling a cascade of training.

Dates and duration: 2024 quarter 3 or 4.

Audience: The training is designed for experienced professionals with an active role in emergency preparedness and response, ideally for biorisk involving events, and preferably cover the role of trainer within their respective institutions. The experts will be selected, for each initiative for health security (IHS) country, from the following sectors: 

• Health emergency services (HES)/ PH (e.g., paramedics, nurses, emergency physicians, red cross staff, etc., selected by ECDC) 
• Law Enforcement (e.g., police, border control, custom, etc., selected by EUROPOL) 
• Civil Protection

Objectives: After completing this training, the participants should be able to: 

• Develop training for a wide audience of first- and second-line responders and more specifically: 
• Recall and draw on the training material provided. 
• Tailor the training material to a specific national or local context. 
• Identify available options when conceiving training material for an occupational safety system for different scenarios of biological threats. 
• Plan a strategy to provide training in their specific national or local context. 
• Understand the specific requirements of effective staff biorisk protection for experts/specialist, including capabilities and limitations of basic protective equipment, from the perspectives of different disciplines or sectors.

Participation: This training is not open for self-enrolment. Participation is through invitation only.

The training is designed to strengthen capacity in EU/EEA countries for the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) due to multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in acute healthcare settings and to promote the broad implementation of appropriate measures in the EU/EEA. The course will be delivered in a synchronous format with pre-course activities.

Dates and duration: 5, 8, 12 and 15 November 2024 (half-days)

Audience: This training is designed for healthcare professionals working at national or local level in EU/EEA countries with current or future responsibility for the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs). This includes infection control/hospital hygiene practitioners, hospital physicians/specialist physicians, hospital epidemiologists, clinical microbiologists, public health microbiologists, antibiotic prescribers, and professionals involved in antimicrobial stewardship. The course is tailored to mid-career professionals involved in infection control programmes to prevent HAIs at the hospital level. Ideally, participants should be active in the field, as they are expected to share their experiences during the course.

Objectives: After completing this training, the participants should be able to: 

•  Identify the challenges related to antibiotic prescription, the burden of anti-microbial resistance (AMR) and the principles of antibiotic stewardship. 
• Differentiate between guidelines, formularies, and policies. 
• Describe measurement of drug usage and the prescribing indicators in relation to structure, process, and outcomes. 
• Identify drug usage over time and interpret prescribing surveillance data. 
• Recognise the elements and performance measurement for an antimicrobial stewardship program (AMS). Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) 
• Consolidate advanced knowledge of mechanisms in relation to the emergence and spread of multidrug resistant organisms (MDRO) in hospital settings and the epidemiological local, national and international consequences. 
• Review the evidence base for local policies and protocols, especially preventative and control strategies for MDRO Gram negatives. 
• Evaluate the effectiveness of different interventions in minimising the transmission of MDROs. 
• Appraise the role of the laboratory in antimicrobial resistance detection, surveillance, and outbreak management. 
• Utilise behavioural science to understand antibiotic prescribing (AP) and infection prevention control (IPC) practices relevant to MDRO control. 
• Recognise how AP/IPC practices may be influenced by healthcare workers' attitudes arising from their human nature, different personalities, and culture. Application to practice 
• Identify interventions to improve antibiotic prescribing (AP) practices for hospitalised patients and measure intervention effect, barriers, and possible solutions. 
• Apply the principles of infection prevention and control (IPC) practices in relation to multidrug resistant organisms (MDRO) in a hospital setting. 
• Illustrate and identify interventional opportunities in AP/IPC to achieve behavioural changes and implementation of best practices. 
• Critically review and apply in practice the strategies and mechanisms to manage and prevent inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. 
• Plan strategies to implement behaviour change interventions in antibiotic stewardship and infection prevention and control. 
• Appraise the emerging field of design and design thinking for behaviour change in a public health context, with an emphasis on behaviour change intervention design. 
• Try out and implement the main design thinking tools that can support intervention design in their local context. 
• Critically review the dissemination of planned interventions and their application to practice.

Participation: This training is not open for self-enrolment. Participation is through invitation only.

This four-hour course will provide public health and communication experts with strategies, knowledge, and hands-on skills to recognise, monitor and increase capacity to address online vaccine misinformation. This self-paced e-learning course consists of 6 modules which will introduce you to basic concepts of misinformation, social listening, health and vaccine literacy, prebunking and debunking techniques to counter misinformation, and evaluating interventions that aim to address online vaccine misinformation.

Duration: 4 hours.

Audience: Risk communication and public health experts at national and regional levels in the EU/EEA.

Objectives: The course aims to provide participants with a broad understanding of what online vaccination misinformation is, and what steps can be taken to address it. Through this, it aims to improve the capacity of EU/EEA countries to counter vaccine misinformation in an evidence-based manner.

Participation: This course is open for public enrolment.

The course will be available as a non-moderated, self-paced course, i.e. participants can decide when to use it, interrupt and come back to continue it at any time. The different sections of the course are intended to be taken sequentially but the course does not need to be completed all at once.

Duration: 3 to 5 hours

Audience: Professionals with a public health background who have an interest in becoming familiar with the tools, standards, and practices adopted at a technical level for the early detection of health threats in the EU and internationally.

Objectives: On completing the course, participants will be able to:: 

• Understand the process of early detection of health threats at ECDC; 
• Identify epidemic intelligence tools and platforms; 
• Cite examples of best practices on epidemic intelligence among the experts in prevention and control of communicable diseases.

Participation: This course is open for public enrolment.

In this e-learning course on how to design a table-top exercise (TTX), we are looking at the basic concepts of how to design and run a TTX. This course will be especially useful as a primer to those who will be planning, designing, conducting and/or evaluating a TTX.

Duration: 30 minutes.

Audience: Public health professionals seeking to learn how to design functional exercises.

Objective: On completing this course, participants will be able to: 

• Understand how to develop the aims and objectives for a table-top exercise; 
• Understand the key elements of exercise design; and
• Utilise existing ECDC tools in the designing of simulation exercise with a focus on public health.

Participation: This course is open for public enrolment.

We plan to organize throughout the duration of VectorNet (2019-2023) a series of 9 webinars. Some webinars will be scientific webinars, some other will be technical webinars. The topic for all these webinars will be related to vectors and vector-borne diseases, of both human health and animal health relevance. As the topics for the following webinars have not yet been decided, we encourage participants to suggest topics that they consider of interest.

Duration: 45 minutes.

Audience: The sessions will be open to all interested experts who would like to attend.

Objectives:   Each webinar will have specific objectives. Capacity building by sharing and discussing  vectors and vector-borne diseases, of both human health and animal health relevance.

Participation: This webinar is open for public enrolment. By enrolling in this series you will be automatically subscribed to the announcements board for this webinar series.

By enrolling in this series you will be automatically subscribed to the announcements board for the VectorNet webinar series'