| PurposeTo promote public health discipline and health professional development, we evaluated the performance and the effects of the'"Shanghai Outstanding Youth Training Program'" in the second round of the Three-Year Public Health Action Plan. We summarized the program progress and problems during the program implementation. We also provided recommendations in order to better serve the next round of "Outstanding Youth Training Program"MethodsWe evaluated 100 young professionals who were supported by the program on the following aspects:(1) External support, (2) Overall research project implementation, (3) Project funds management, (4) Improvement of public health practice and professional skills, (5) Project progress and outputs, (6) Improvement of theoretical knowledge and teaching skills, (7) Improvement of research abilities. The evaluation materials included self-evaluation forms and the experts evaluation. For pre-and post-project comparisons, we also collected the baseline information in the period of 2004 and 2006. Data were independently double-entered into Excel 2007 and the data entry quality was cross-checked. All the data were analyzed by Stata 9.0 and all the tables and figures were done in Excel 2007. The statistical methods included Chi-square tests, Student's t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests and ANOVA tests as appropriate. P values <0.05 were considered statistical significant. Parts of the data were also analyzed by qualitative methods.Results1. Demographics:Among 100 awardees,48% was male and 52% was female.12% from universities,22% from hospitals,21% from municipal-level institutions (21%) and 45%from district (county) level institutions. The program covered 22 majors. The top three majors were:infectious disease (26%), hygiene supervision (13%), and occupational hygiene (7%). Fifteen of 100 awardees were associate professors or equivalent,84 were assistant professors or equivalent.1 was junior faculty, and the remaining one was unknown. Twenty-four were undergraduates,45 held master degree and 30 of them had Ph.D. degree. There was a significant improvement of titles and educations compared to 2004-2006.2. Project progress:All awardees submitted self-evaluation forms for project performance review. All of them were assigned mentors. Eighty-one of them set up the project team,10 of them did not. and the remaining 9 unknown.91 of 100 awardees followed the time schedules of the projects as planned,6 of them had delayed and remaining 3 were unknown.3. Financial support:all investigators got full funding from Shanghai Municipal Health Bureau with average 138±11 thousand RMB. Matched funds from their own institutions arranged from 0 to 170 thousand RMB, with the median of 72.5 thousand RMB. Of the 4 groups categorized by their institutions, university group had the least matched funds, with the median of 10 thousand RMB only. The median of matched funds was 80 thousand RMB in clinical facility group,100 thousand RMB in district (county) level institutions, and 135 thousand RMB in municipal-level institutions.4. Professional performance:Overall, compared to 2004-2006, significant improvements were seen on professional performance, which include project progress, scientific publications and awards, academic training and activities et al. The overall self-evaluation score was increased (85.20±5.68) compared to years 2004～2006 (72.79±8.75) (P<0.0001). There was no significant difference of self-evaluation scores among 4 groups (P=0.20).5. Experts review: The range of overall score given by experts was 0-100. The mean of this score was 81.88±6.15. The scores for individual evaluation item were 2.7-3.1 (score range:0-4), which represents good level. The individual scores ranked from high to low were external support, research ability, practice ability, funding management, theoretical knowledge, executive ability and project progress. These scores showed statistical differences across facility groups. In general, clinical facility group had the best scores, followed by municipal-level institutions, universities, and district (county) level institutions had the lowest scores.6. Qualitative analyses of project progress:During the three years of training, the youth professionals were active in public health practice, including major public health emergency events, major events of public health protection work, chronic and infectious disease prevention, support public health policy development, participate in health education and health promotion work, etc., Through these practices in public health area, their theoretical, practical and research abilities had a significant improvement.Conclusion1. The outstanding young health professional training program made good progress during three years.2. In comparison of 2004-2006 and 2007-2009, for 100 awardees, the title, education, theoretical level, research ability, academic output, public health practice, were in a larger upward trend. However, it showed that the young professionals with particularly prominent comprehensive ability are still lacking. The differences of personal abilities exist across facility groups.3. Although research project could be conducted smoothly according to the schedule, it was still not good enough to meet the ultimate goal of the three-year-action-plan.4. Outstanding Youth Training Program still needs improvement. Long term plan and better support for public health individual training should be provided in order to significantly improve their research ability. |
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