Washington DC, April 18, 2024- The Virtual Campus for Public Health (VCPH) of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) surpassed 3 million users from more than 225 countries and territories around the world.
"In just over 20 years, the Virtual Campus has grown exponentially and has established itself as an educational community of reference, key to expanding knowledge and strengthening the capacities of health workers and students,” said James Fitzgerald, director of PAHO's Department of Health Systems and Services.
Among the self-learning courses launched and updated so far this year are: Health promotion; Risk communication and community participation in health emergencies; Good manufacturing practices in blood services and Scientific methodology and strategies for the dissemination of knowledge for nurses. The platform has courses in several languages: Spanish, English, French and Portuguese, among others.
"The Virtual Campus has a range of courses designed especially for health workers. However, the use of the Campus is growing day by day by students from different health science careers, who both on the recommendation of their universities and out of personal interest find in the Campus a space for training in subjects of great relevance for the improvement of health systems," said Gabriel Listovsky, head of the special Virtual Campus program.
"In the same way, every day, more and more of the community in general approaches the Virtual Campus and finds materials of interest for health care in courses such as Home blood pressure measurement or care of family members with dementia," he added.
Drawing a more specific profile, the majority of users are people from health systems and health sciences students. At least 68% are women and young users predominates. Approximately 57% have a university education, mainly in nursing or medicine, half of the users work in hospitals and 37% in the first level of care.
In 2023 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Virtual Campus, PAHO launched the new APP aimed at facilitating access to the campus through cell phones and the availability of offline educational material.
In the near future, Gabriel Listovsky projects that the Virtual Campus “will continue to provide support for the building of resilient health systems, based on primary care and work in collaboration with academic institutions in the Americas to guarantee equitable access to health innovations in the region."
Reaching health workers who are in remote areas better every day will be the objective of the coming years. Always seeking to promote academic excellence and train health personnel to respond to the needs of the population, without leaving anyone behind.
