Global experience breeds new public health perspectives
April 21, 2009 -- Trucks rode up and down the street at various times throughout the day, instructing through loudspeakers how to deal with a cholera outbreak.
That was part of an outbreak investigation that Kim Porter, a fourth year doctoral student in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, experienced while in Thailand.
Kim Porter (right) at an international meeting in Kuala LampurPorter, who is working toward her doctorate in epidemiology, went to the country as an assistant English editor for Outbreak & Surveillance Investigations and Reports (OSIR), a new e-journal focusing on timely reporting of outbreak investigations and surveillance data from Southeast Asia.
While there, she got firsthand experience dealing with a real outbreak situation in the rural Tak province.
“We were given a line-list of cases and had to decide what type of study would be appropriate to conduct,” Porter said.
Cholera is a disease often spread through the consumption of contaminated water or seafood. Investigators found a common link and started there.
“A number of the infected people had eaten raw meat from the same vendor,” Porter said. “So we went to the stand and interviewed the vendor and collected samples. We also interviewed many of the cases. The outbreak investigation team worked with provincial authorities and developed a detailed questionnaire that will hopefully be of use in future outbreaks of diarrheal disease.”
Porter said the help of the community health volunteers were vital in investigating the outbreak.
“The community health workers and public health officials really came together and helped do the things necessary to slow the outbreak and help us proceed with our investigation. They were really knowledgeable; I learned quite a bit. ” Porter said.
The majority of Porter’s work was spent with the OSIR. The journal is currently available in English and Thai, has a strong focus on applied public health, Porter said, with a targeted audience of epidemiologists, physicians, veterinarians and anyone interested in field epidemiology.
“The journal publishes the nitty-gritty about outbreak investigations and what worked and what didn’t work,” Porter said.
Part of the enthusiasm for OSIR arose from the outbreaks of bird flu in human and animal populations that have affected Southeast Asian countries in the last few years.
“Diseases don’t have to have a passport to go from country to country,” Porter said. “There could be an outbreak in a neighboring country, and important information may not be spread as widely as it needs to be.”
OSIR hopes to be able to help bridge that information gap.
“There are also dozens, if not hundreds, of trainees from field epidemiology training programs that have done excellent work but don’t have many opportunities to disseminate their findings.”
The publication hopes to expand and eventually be published in additional languages so that doctors and authorities can learn of strategies and techniques that have been tried and are working as well as those that are not effective.
Porter learned about the journal in Thailand through Pia MacDonald, Latin America Projects Manager at the UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases. MacDonald, who is also a Research Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness, encouraged a number of students to apply, including Porter.
“I knew it was a very good opportunity and one that Kim would be interested in,” MacDonald said. “It can be challenging to get public health experience in another country as a student, but it is critical for School of Public Health students to get an understanding of public health in the global context.”
Sending students abroad benefits more than just one individual student and is essential for the school, MacDonald said.
“When she comes back to the classroom, she is bringing the Thai perspective to things taught in class,” MacDonald said. “It helps broaden the learning experience for other students and for the faculty because of the new perspectives.”
After receiving her PhD, Porter plans to apply for a two-year fellowship with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service and eventually work for the government.
- Andrew Cummings ('10) (Originally published at UNC Global)
