News & Publications

Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative - Articles by Carter Center Experts

22 October 2007
The Use of Service-Learning in Drought Response by Universities in Ethiopia
This article was published in Nursing Outlook, Volume 55, Issue 5, Special Focus: Global Theme on Poverty and Human Development, September-October 2007, Pages 224-231.Copyright Elsevier 2007
Authors: Elizabeth A. Downes MPH, MSN, APRN-C, FNP, Joyce P. Murray EdD, RN, FAAN and Shelly L. Brownsberger MS. Service-Learning has become a well-established educational strategy. This practice-based teaching-learning method allows students to develop relevant competencies while addressing the needs of a community. The recurrence of drought in Ethiopia necessitates a health workforce with requisite competencies in drought response. This article describes a successful Service-Learning experience and its outcomes that affected over 10 million Ethiopians. The 2006 World Health Report calls for an appropriately prepared health workforce. Universities in Ethiopia are rising to this challenge with the integration of strategies that support the education of interdisciplinary Health Teams for community deployment. Teams of Public Health Nurses, Health Officers, Environmental Health Sanitarians, and Medical Laboratory Technicians are prepared to address the health needs of the communities served. The introduction of Service-Learning as a teaching-learning strategy into the university health science curriculum in Ethiopia has demonstrated important outcomes. The drought response Service-Learning program is a successful model worthy of consideration for other universities.

3 August 2007
Jimmy Carter:  America Is Robbing Developing Nations Of Health Workers
The July 31 USA Today Forum article "U.S. savior: Foreign doctors" is very interesting but presents only one side of a tragic and selfish trend: the active recruitment of extremely scarce health workers from the poorer countries of the world. This is a crisis that The Carter Center faces every day in fighting malaria, lymphatic filariasis, Guinea worm, trachoma, river blindness, and schistosomiasis.