Training public health professionals in Africa: Loma Linda University approach.

The health challenges facing the African continent are enormous and sometimes look insurmountable. The continent is plagued by an array of preventable and communicable causes of morbidity and mortality. Malaria, measles, pneumonia, undernutrition, and diarrheal diseases are major child killers. Tuberculosis and HIV/ AIDS are huge and growing challenges, especially within the adult population (1,2). Many inhabitants of Africa live below the poverty line, usually defined as earning less than one US$ each day. It is important to realize that those that earn more than a dollar a day could be earning just a few cents more and therefore not be officially defined as living below the poverty line. Illiteracy rate is high, potable water scarce, urbanization accelerating, and health service centers sparsely situated, inadequately staffed, and poorly equipped. The health situation of the people in Africa is characterized by the shortage of health professionals that should be delivering adequate quality and quantity health care services, both curative and preventive. The emigration of health professionals, called „brain drain“ by some authors and „brain circulation“ by others, is an important reason for the current shortage of training health workers on the continent (3,4). Even without the migration of Africa’s health professionals, Africa is unable to train adequate numbers of health professionals on its own. A Master of Public Health (MPH) program offered at the Loma Linda University (California) School of Public Health between 2000 and 2004 attempted to contribute to solving the shortage of public health professionals in Africa. Master of Public Health course