The overarching goal of this five-year competing renewal application is capacity building, outside of South Africa, leading to greater self-sufficiency in environmental and occupational health (EOH) in the 14-nation Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region. The major strategy for sustainable capacity building is through support of four Single Country Resource Centers (SCRCs) located in Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique to assist their development into academic research and training Centers of Excellence (CoEs). Specific elements of a regional situational analysis which drive the program plan include: a) the existence of well-established South African diploma and degree programs in EOH in South Africa;b) the relatively weak, though uneven, development of human resources in the EOH in the rest of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC);c) the high cost of supporting degree candidates in the United States as compared to supporting such candidates in South Africa;d) the wide geographic dispersion of the countries represented in SADC, together with the demonstration of the effectiveness of technology-based, distance learning course modalities, and, e) the relative underdevelopment of environmental health as compared occupational health in the region. Based on an analysis of these factors, the program plan emphasizes: 1) assisting the SCRCs with curriculum development and the launching of new high-quality degree programs, with an emphasis on environmental health, through direct support of infrastructure, holding curriculum and other relevant workshops, sharing existent written and distance learning materials, and providing guest lectures, 2) fully supporting tuition and stipends for students nominated by SCRCs to complete diplomas, Masters degrees, and doctoral degrees in EOH at South African universities, 3) augmenting doctoral degree programs with intensive three-month research training at the University of Michigan, 4) directly funding and co-supervising Masters and doctoral in-country research projects. Also proposed is a complementary Regional Resource Center in EOH which would: organize planning conferences to determine and address regional needs;developed publicly accessible databases of materials;develop new course modules in portable digital formats and enhance infrastructure necessary for their delivery;an provide a virtual meeting place for a regional participants through an interactive web site.
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