Abstract
BackgroundThe relevance of Public Health Genomics (PHG) education among public health specialists has been recently acknowledged by the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region. The aim of this cross-sectional survey was to assess the prevalence of post-graduate public health schools for medical doctors which offer PHG training in Italy.MethodsThe directors of the 33 Italian public health schools were interviewed for the presence of a PHG course in place. We stratified by geographical area (North, Centre and South) of the schools. We performed comparisons of categorical data using the chi-squared test.ResultsThe response rate was 73% (24/33 schools). Among respondents, 15 schools (63%) reported to have at least one dedicated course in place, while nine (38%) did not, with a significant geographic difference.ConclusionsResults showed a good implementation of courses in PHG discipline in Italian post-graduate public health schools. However further harmonization of the training programs of schools in public health at EU level is needed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1472-6920-14-213) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The relevance of Public Health Genomics (PHG) education among public health specialists has been recently acknowledged by the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region
We designed a questionnaire which investigated the following: (1) presence of a dedicated course in PHG, defined as a course focusing on any aspect dealing with the translation of genome-based knowledge and technologies in population health during the training period; (2) their exact content and (3) duration; (4) the academic year(s) in which the teaching course(s) take place; (5) modalities of exams; if there were no courses in place, (6) whether there was the intention to introduce it in the near future, and (7) whether the university had a full tenure in genetics, to investigate the potential relevance of the academic
Of the nine schools that did not have a course on PHG, five (56%) were reportedly planning to introduce such courses in the near future; one school (11%) did not plan to introduce PHG teaching and one (11%) was unsure
Summary
The relevance of Public Health Genomics (PHG) education among public health specialists has been recently acknowledged by the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region. The aim of this cross-sectional survey was to assess the prevalence of post-graduate public health schools for medical doctors which offer PHG training in Italy. There are no studies, investigating PHG training courses among the post-graduate medical schools in public health. This prompted us to carry out a study to assess the prevalence of on-going or planned courses on PHG among the post-graduate schools of public health in Italy, where current national policy envisages such need [12]
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