The Development of Health Learning Materials

Modules are created through a collaborative effort between the seven partner universities, under the leadership of the Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative.

Generally, the process follows several steps:

• During semi-annual meetings, faculty members from all the universities decide on which topics are needed in module form.
• Once module topics are decided upon and assigned to a particular university, that university designates faculty members as a writing team comprised of four health sectors: health officer, environmental sanitarian, public health nurse, and medical laboratory technician.
• The writing team completes a rough draft of a new module, and asks colleagues at the university to review it for technical and grammatical correctness.
• Peer-reviewed drafts of the modules are then distributed to the other six university partners for another round of technical review and suggestions.
• Finally, the nationally-reviewed draft is sent to international experts with specialized knowledge of the module topic for a technical review.
• Once reviewed on the international level, editorial suggestions are incorporated into the module by the original authors.
• The final module is then printed and distributed.
• Periodically, intensive inter-institution workshops are held and devoted entirely to developing modules and other training materials.

Modules – a complete learning package related to a certain topic. Modules are distributed to degree seeking students and to the primary health care centers so that health care staff can refer to them as needed and use as reference materials. A section on the significance of the problem is included early in the module and is based on current epidemiological and medical data. Case studies are then provided within the module to bring the problem into practical experience.

Case studies are in the modules
Core module – the beginning section of the module, includes all essential information needed by the four professional team members in the clearest possible words. It will include all the relevant information for the topic needed by the team members: signs and symptoms of a problem, how to diagnose is, how to treat it. The core module contains technical words and terms all team members must know. New and unusual vocabulary words, which are essential for effective team functioning, are included in the glossary.

Satellite module – smaller, specialty-related components of the module pertaining to one of the four health care worker team members: health officers, nurses, medical lab technicians, and environmental sanitarians. A satellite module is prepared for each category of health personnel and all information needed to perform that person's role is included in their section. Because the team members' educational backgrounds are often different, great care is taken to tailor a particular satellite module to its audience.

Lecture Notes
Lecture Notes are health learning materials of related discussion points for use by faculty as class lectures, student reading material and notes for the students by which to study. They are created by the same process as the modules above, except that their initial drafts are from a collection of lecture notes from faculty members.

Practice Manuals
Practice Manuals are related to specific topics such as RH activities, etc, and are given to students, faculty and the primary health care team. Practice Manuals contain diagrams and practice skill instructions on a specific health related skill, i.e., how to give an injection, how to give a physical exam, how to treat a woman who is pregnant and bleeding.