Public Health Foundations for Health Professionals Training Course

Course overview

Health professionals are increasingly expected to look beyond individual consultations, wards or service lines and identify the population factors driving demand, unequal outcomes and preventable illness. Yet many clinicians, service managers and allied health staff have limited formal grounding in epidemiology, surveillance, prevention planning or health equity analysis. This course provides the practical public health foundation needed to interpret population data, contribute confidently to multidisciplinary programmes and connect frontline observations with evidence-based action.

Participants learn how public health systems define and measure need; use incidence, prevalence, mortality, risk and rate calculations; assess health inequalities; and distinguish screening, prevention and health promotion interventions. The programme covers routine surveillance, outbreak investigation principles, communicable and non-communicable disease control, environmental determinants, health policy, and emergency preparedness. Participants practise using Microsoft Excel and Epi Info to organise data, calculate indicators, interpret epidemiological tables and communicate findings through a concise population health briefing.

Teaching combines instructor-led explanation with structured data exercises, outbreak scenarios, service-planning case studies and facilitated group critique. Throughout the week, participants build a practical Public Health Action Brief for a defined community or service population. The completed brief includes a population profile, priority health issue, inequality analysis, selected indicators, proposed prevention actions, stakeholder map and implementation measures. It gives participants a workplace-ready document they can adapt for quality improvement, service redesign or local public health planning.

The course is particularly valuable for health professionals moving into population health responsibilities, clinical leadership, service management, community programmes or integrated care roles. It is also suitable for managers seeking staff who can use public health evidence to justify priorities, target resources and evaluate interventions.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Calculate incidence, prevalence, mortality, relative risk and standardised rates from routine health data
• Interpret epidemiological tables, epidemic curves and surveillance dashboards to identify priority population health issues
• Construct a population health profile using demographic, disease burden, service-use and deprivation indicators
• Apply the social determinants of health framework to analyse health inequalities and unequal access to care
• Differentiate primary, secondary and tertiary prevention and select interventions matched to a defined risk group
• Use basic outbreak investigation steps to define cases, describe transmission patterns and recommend control measures
• Assess screening proposals using sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, benefits, harms and target-population criteria
• Produce a Public Health Action Brief with indicators, stakeholders, prevention actions and evaluation measures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Clinical Team Leaders — who need to link service pressures and patient outcomes to population-level evidence
• Nurses and Allied Health Professionals — who contribute to prevention, health promotion and community care pathways
• Public Health Practitioners — who require a structured grounding in core epidemiology, surveillance and planning methods
• Health Service Managers — who must prioritise resources using disease burden, inequality and utilisation data
• Community Health Workers — who design or deliver programmes for groups facing avoidable health risks
• Quality Improvement Professionals — who need population indicators to frame improvement priorities and evaluate impact

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience working in a health, social care, community or health-service setting and be comfortable reading basic tables, percentages and charts. Familiarity with routine service data, electronic health records, audit reports or local health needs assessments is useful, but not essential. The course assumes no previous training in epidemiology, biostatistics or public health policy. Participants should be able to use a laptop for simple spreadsheet tasks, such as entering data and using basic formulas. Advanced statistical software, coding, prior outbreak-management experience and clinical specialist knowledge are not required.

Training methodology

The programme uses short instructor-led teaching blocks followed by applied work with public health datasets, surveillance extracts and realistic service scenarios. Participants calculate rates in Microsoft Excel, enter and review simple case data in Epi Info, interpret epidemic curves, and compare prevention options using structured decision criteria. Small groups examine a community health case, challenge each other’s assumptions about risk and equity, and receive tutor feedback on their findings. Each day contributes a section to an individual Public Health Action Brief, which participants refine into a workplace application plan on day five.

Course outline

Day 1: Public health systems, population need and prevention

• Core functions of public health and the population-health approach
• Health protection, health improvement and healthcare public health
• Population denominators, target groups and geographic catchments
• Social determinants of health and the health equity gradient
• Primary, secondary and tertiary prevention models
• Health promotion approaches and behaviour change determinants
• Public health ethics, proportionality and equitable resource allocation

Workshop: Participants map the determinants, service barriers and prevention opportunities affecting a selected local population and produce a priority-issue statement.

Day 2: Epidemiology and health data interpretation

• Incidence, prevalence, mortality and case-fatality measures
• Crude rates, age-specific rates and direct standardisation concepts
• Risk ratios, odds ratios and attributable risk interpretation
• Absolute risk, relative risk and number needed to treat
• Descriptive epidemiology by person, place and time
• Data quality checks for completeness, validity, timeliness and bias
• Microsoft Excel formulas and pivot tables for public health indicators

Workshop: Using a supplied dataset, participants calculate and compare disease rates across two populations, then produce an evidence-based interpretation of the difference.

Day 3: Surveillance, communicable disease and outbreak response

• Routine surveillance systems and notifiable disease reporting
• Case definitions, line lists and minimum outbreak data fields
• Epidemic curves and transmission pattern interpretation
• Outbreak investigation steps and hypothesis generation
• Contact tracing, isolation, infection prevention and control measures
• Risk communication principles for patients, staff and communities
• Epi Info for case-data entry, frequency tables and basic outbreak summaries

Workshop: Participants investigate a simulated gastroenteritis outbreak, build a line list, interpret an epidemic curve and recommend immediate control actions.

Day 4: Health inequalities, screening and programme design

• Measuring inequalities by deprivation, ethnicity, age, sex and geography
• Access barriers, inverse care patterns and culturally safe engagement
• Screening principles, target populations and programme pathways
• Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values and false-result consequences
• Assessing prevention interventions using evidence, feasibility and acceptability
• Logic models linking inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes
• Stakeholder mapping for community, clinical and cross-sector partnerships

Workshop: In groups, participants assess a proposed screening or prevention programme and produce a logic model with equity safeguards and stakeholder actions.

Day 5: Policy, evaluation and public health action planning

• Public health policy levers, regulation and advocacy approaches
• International Health Regulations (2005) and preparedness responsibilities
• ICD-11 classifications and their use in health reporting
• Selecting outcome, process, balancing and equity indicators
• Baseline setting, targets and practical monitoring plans
• Communicating population findings through concise briefing formats
• Public Health Action Brief structure and implementation planning

Workshop: Participants present and refine their Public Health Action Brief, receiving peer and tutor feedback on priorities, indicators, prevention actions and implementation feasibility.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Epi Info, WHO International Health Regulations (2005), ICD-11

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions