Coordinated training and evaluation of professionals and pre-service students to achieve an integrated workforce to mitigate community vector-borne disease risks in the Gulf Coast region. - Vector-borne diseases have increased in the past two decades at rates beyond what current infrastructure can manage. In order to protect public health, we must increase and strengthen our front line defenses, which are mosquito abatement districts and public health workers. This is particularly important in the Gulf South because of its intersection of health and economic disparities with a climate that is susceptible to vectors and pathogens. Our proposal, entitled “Coordinated training and evaluation of pest management, vector control districts, public health, sanitary, and animal health professionals in these fields to achieve an integrated workforce to mitigate community vector-borne disease risk in the Gulf Coast region,” will address critical gaps in information exchange, resources, infrastructure, evaluation methods, and training standards. The strategies outlined will address these gaps by creating education, evaluation, and partnership sustainability tools that will last beyond the scope and timeline of this proposal. Specifically, we will TRAIN students and professionals. We will create and test educational content that highlights procedural best practices. The core curriculum will be standardized and replicated across the region, and will be offered to students, working professionals, and trainees across audiences with diverse backgrounds. Educational programming can be evaluated using standardized measurement tools. We will implement a training system with four tiers: Awareness, Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert. The training will be centered around regional hubs that offer in-person and virtual modules to increase reach. The educational offerings will be translated into Spanish and other major languages to reach the full extent of the population in the Gulf Coast. We will also create a career exploration program to target college-level students, and our academic partners will incorporate material and guest lecturers into existing public health courses and seminar classes. We will then EVALUATE the impact and effectiveness of VBD programs. We will form a working group to compile a collection of relevant information that defines current VBD preparedness, monitoring, and response capacity. The group will regularly meet to share ideas, information, relevant resources, and training materials. The group will construct a needs assessment model built on previous national and regional assessments to better understand vector control activities, knowledge gaps, and challenges to implementation in the Gulf South. We will determine best practices for our region as guided by needs assessment and survey results. Finally, we will build a network of relevant stakeholders and PARTNERS to achieve these goals. This working group will hold regular meetings to share ideas and work to improve vector control practices. We will create mechanisms for sustainability of partnerships and infrastructure to ensure continued cooperation and information sharing among stakeholders and partners. All materials and other relevant products generated by the actions in this proposal will be housed in a centralized online platform with continued access beyond the project timeline. The outcomes of this proposal will be achieved because of the strength of our collaborations across academia, government, national associations, private industry, and the health and veterinary fields, as these organizations already have the infrastructure in place and experience required to teach and mentor the future VBD workforce. This project will break down silos and promote interdisciplinary training through regional and national cooperation that is desperately needed to build resiliency and protect people and animals from VBDs.
