South Africa Field Epidemiology Training Programme
Background
The South Africa Field Epidemiology Training Programme (SAFETP) was created in 2006 after recognizing the need to build and sustain the country’s human resource capacity in applied epidemiology and public health practice. It was formed as collaboration between the South Africa National Department of Health (NDoH), the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the University of Pretoria (UP). Like most other FETPs globally, the SAFETP is a 2-year, competency-based, applied epidemiology training program, based on the ‘learn by doing’ model. SAFETP residents spend approximately 25% of the training in classroom-based didactic learning activities, and 75% in field activities. Residents gain core competencies in epidemiology, biostatistics, outbreak investigation, scientific communication, surveillance evaluation, teaching others, and public health..