Chronic Disease/Maternal & Child Health Epidemiology Capacity Building Models

Brief Summary:
The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologist (CSTE) has recommended increased capacity building in chronic disease epidemiology in all states and US territories. Currently, there are several models that employ various strategies to expand states’ chronic disease epidemiology capacity. In the first model, states request Direct Assistance (DA) through funded cooperative agreements with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. In this model, a senior level CDC chronic disease epidemiologist, who is a doctorate level epidemiologist with additional applied epidemiology training, is assigned to a state for two or more years.  In a second model, Masters level epidemiologists are recruited into the CSTE Applied Epidemiology Fellowship and placed in state health departments for two years of on-the-job training. This approach aims to expand the pool of educated and experienced chronic disease epidemiologists. A third model uses a graduated funding mechanism to local or state health departments. In this model, a more senior level epidemiologist is hired with federal assistance through a cooperative agreement to support 100% of the salary for the first year and diminishing support up to five years thereafter, with a goal that the state will develop a long-term sustainable plan to keep the new hire. This method capitalizes on the benefits of the first model, but gradually transfers the financial support of the new hire to the state health department. A fourth model, has been successful in matching a recently hired state chronic disease epidemiologist with a more senior epidemiology mentor for a period of up to one year to build a competency focused capacity.  At this roundtable, we share the various models employed for expanding and maintaining the chronic disease/ MCH epidemiological capacity and some of the lessons learned from the field.