The Thailand Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) joined the Data Impact (DI) Program in January 2020 to support existing public health initiatives. The Scientific Communications (SC) and Data to Policy (D2P) activities support the Thailand Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) to provide additional public health capacity building trainings and workshops. While these DI Program training activities are typically led by Technical Leads from CDC/CDC Foundation to train government staff, the MOPH revised the D2P and SC materials to lead their own independent trainings in December 2023 to FETP and MOPH staff.
The condensed Scientific Communications (SC) training took place December 6-8, 2023 in Nonthaburi, Thailand. Participants included 18 FETP mentees, and 11 MOPH staff and were led by six mentors in the 2-day workshop. This workshop gave participants an opportunity to work closely with a mentor and better understand how to effectively write scientific manuscripts using the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD) format during breakout groups. In addition, the participants exercised how to write references (e.g. source from books and articles). The training also strengthened the writing skills and increased the number of potential authors to publish articles in collaboration with Thailand’s National Public Health Bulletin: Weekly Epidemiological Surveillance Report.
Similarly, a condensed Data to Policy (D2P) training took place December 20-21, 2023 in Nonthaburi, Thailand. The audience included three Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) mentees, and 25 Thailand Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) staff and was also led by mentors coming from the FETP and the International Health Policy Program, Thailand (IHPP). The objectives of the training were to enhance the participants’ knowledge of policy concepts to develop a short policy brief and inform policy recommendation. Furthermore, the condensed December 2023 training helped to promote the upcoming D2P training in May 2024 and improve the culture of data use to health policy within an organization. The seven D2P mentors facilitated the workshop and participants to develop a simple policy brief for exercise during the workshop. In particular, the workshop provided the opportunity for participants to practice data utilization for policy advocacy.
Overall, both SC and D2P trainings received positive feedback from participants about the gained knowledge and benefits they obtained after learning and practicing from the training which highlights the importance of the in-country program activities. The Thailand MOPH independent pilot trainings indicate that the team is well-suited toward long-term sustainability and institutionalization of the DI Program.
