Developing capacity in field epidemiology in England.

Abstract

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of healthrelated states or events (including disease). Public health professionals apply epidemiological methods to:* Assess the health states and health needs of specific populations;* design and implement interventions designed to improve the health of that population; and* evaluate the effectiveness and costeffectiveness of public health interventions to inform future public health practice.Field epidemiology has been described as 'the application of epidemiological methods to unexpected health problems when a rapid on-site investigation is necessary for timely intervention.1 It is often applied in the context of the investigation of outbreaks of infection or environmental incidents requiring descriptive analysis to generate hypotheses to be tested with analytical studies.Epidemiologists are a diverse workforce, including medical consultant epidemiologists, scientists, analysts, nurses and researchers, employed in public and private organizations including: local authority public health departments, academic centres, research departments, industry and Public Health England (PHE). Epidemiology underpins public health policy and practice and is a core competence across public health careers.In 2008, one of PHE's predecessor organizations, the Health Protection Agency, undertook a review of epidemiology.2 This review identified a need to develop epidemiology in four areas:* Strengthen the use of epidemiological science to underpin responses to local health protection incidents and outbreaks;* develop further epidemiological skills across the health protection workforce;* develop stronger links between environmental, chemical, radiological and infectious disease epidemiology; and* strengthen links between local and national epidemiologists and the delivery of epidemiological services and research at local and national level.This report resulted in important developments to increase field epidemiology skills and capacity, including establishing the: Field Epidemiology Service (FES); Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP); and the Field Epidemiology Network.DEVELOPMENTS TO STRENGTHEN FIELD EPIDEMIOLOGYField Epidemiology ServiceFES is a nationally coordinated but geographically dispersed service that provides high quality, responsive and flexible field epidemiological investigations across PHE. The service is headed by the Director of Field Epidemiology and comprises consultants, scientists, information staffand administrators. It has core functions in three areas:* Information and intelligence for public health action;* response to public health problems; and* research and evaluation activity to build the evidence-base for public health.FES supports PHE Centres and NHS and local authority partners in the surveillance of communicable diseases and investigation of outbreaks and health protection incidents. FES works closely with PHE national centres, academic centres and National Health Research Units.The establishment of this new service provides an opportunity to review workforce capacity and skills and service delivery; to ensure FES has the right skills, in the right places, in the necessary quantities to deliver current and future service needs; and inform developments such as the FETP and Modernising Scientific Careers (MSC).Field Epidemiology Training ProgrammeThis is a full time, competency-based, two-year postgraduate training programme, aimed at medical, scientific, and nursing staffwho wish to develop their specialist field epidemiology skills; as well as specialty registrars, veterinarians, and others with an interest in field epidemiology.Training is provided through service placements, learning activities and taught modules. The programme covers the eight core competencies for field epidemiologists agreed by the European Centre for Disease Control. …