10th INTER-REGIONAL TRAINING COURSE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT IN ASIAN AND THE PACIFIC (PHEMAP-10)

The 10th inter-regional training course on Public Health and Emergency Management in Asian and the Pacific (PHEMAP–10) have been organized by Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) in collaboration with Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH) from August 23rd to September 3rd 2010 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The course gathered 30 participants including the public health managers and officers who are directly managing public health emergency from 14 countries in Asia and the Pacific. The goal of PHEMAP Course is to help governments to develop more effective policies, administrative procedures and technical guidelines for health sector emergency management. The course includes risk management, health emergency management, risk communication, emergency response, hospital disaster response planning, helping the participants apply the knowledge and skills into local and national systems.

The course will be relevant to senior-level public health officers (director-level positions and above) who have health emergency management responsibilities. Health emergency managers includes heath emergency coordinators in national and provincial health ministries, health care facility managers and WHO health emergency management program focal points. Teaching staff and representatives of academic institutions who are involved in health emergency management education would also benefit from this course. The course trainers, who come from ADPC, World Health Organization (WHO), Health Ministry of Philippines, Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH) and other originations of United Nations (UN), have much experienced in training and studying as well as directly participating in health emergency response.

The goal of PHEMAP Course is to strengthen national capabilities in the public health aspects of emergency management in the Asian and Pacific regions. This is done by offering a comprehensive package of specific courses targeted to the differing needs of health policy makers, health sector managers, medical professionals and public health officials; To equip public health officials with knowledge and skills to participate more effectively in the development of evidence-based national health sector policy, as well as in the production of departmental technical guidelines and training course curricula in emergency management, based on agreed upon national standards of best practice; To promote regional collaboration in emergency management not only by using international standards of best practice (e.g. Sphere, WHO guidelines, etc.) as the basis for the development of the Program curricula and training materials, but also by encouraging participants from countries of the Asia and Pacific regions to continue contact through formal and informal networks, in both development and during an emergency.

“In disastrous circumstances, the role of health sector in public health consequence management and disease prevention is very important. Therefore, we need to concentrate on capacity development of the health officers in this sector through training and sharing the working experiences in national, regional and international scale. The PHEMAP-10 will be a precious opportunity for every public heath officer in the region to learn and share the knowledge on public health disaster management, enhancing the capacity and preparation of the countries in response to the disaster” spoke in the opening ceremony, Prof Dr. Le Vu Anh, Dean of HSPH.

On a global scale, in recent decades, natural disasters become more and more severely and cause many serious consequences for the lives of people, especially the poor. Disasters are natural phenomena, however, during the socio-economic development process, human activities such as technology development, urbanization, overpopulation, resources and environment degradation have increased the extent and consequences of natural disasters. In the past two decades, the world annual average of more than 200 million people directly affected by the disasters caused by the natural disasters. Vietnam is one of the countries affected annually by natural disasters with the tropical monsoon climate. Vietnam is also one of five storm centre of the Asia - Pacific region, cause huge losses to people, property, economic, cultural and social infrastructure as well as negative impacts on environment. A 2007 assessment of the World Bank listed Vietnam as one of the five worst affected countries by climate change and sea level rise. Recognizing the role of the health sector in the health care community affected by disaster, Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH) has initially established the subject called Disaster Prevention in Vietnam. The public health management in disaster program has been brought into the curricula for the Bachelor of Public Health (7 courses) and the Master of Hospital Management (2 courses). Besides, HSPH in collaboration with the World Health Organization have organized the training course with the aim of capacity management development and emergency response for medical staff at all levels (one national course, and two local courses), and carried out a number of studies to evaluate the impact of natural disasters in Vietnam (7 studies).

The PHEMAP course, which was organized in Vietnam for the first time is a practical corporation, will bring the consecutive corporations in the future of Hanoi School of Public Health in collaboration with Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)

Opening Ceremony
Closing Ceremony