Promoting Public Health Workforce Training for Developing and Transitional Countries: Fifty-Year Experience of the Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel

Abstract

The goal and responsibility of graduate institutions of public health is to educate and train the public health workforce to address the challenges of Health for All in the 21st century and meet the Millennium Development Goals. Over the past 50 years, the Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Jerusalem, Israel—through its international training activities including the International Master of Public Health (IMPH) program, PhD training, and short-term training workshops in Israel and abroad—has built a network of public health scholars in low-, transition- and high-income countries who benefit from academic expertise in Israel and transfer that expertise towards development efforts in their home communities. Given the number of IMPH graduates, the countries they come from, and the work they do upon their return, the IMPH has had real and sustainable impact on public health globally and in developing countries in particular.