For more than 20 years, CDC has collaborated with ministries of health around the world to establish Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETPs) for specialists in epidemiology. These programs are modeled on the Epidemic Intelligence Service, CDC’s primary applied epidemiology training program, which was founded in 1951. Canada established a field epidemiology training program in 1975, and Thailand launched one in 1980, in collaboration with CDC and WHO. CDC partners who have helped establish other FETPs include the World Bank (Brazil), PAHO (a regional FETP in Central America), and USAID (Egypt, Jordan, Peru, Philippines, and Central America).

CDC has also provided consultants to Public Health Schools Without Walls (PHSWOW), which helps post-graduate-level public health personnel attain the epidemiologic, managerial and leadership competencies required to run increasingly decentralized health systems. The PHSWOWs are funded by the Rockefeller Foundation with technical support from Tulane University. The first PHSWOW was launched in Zimbabwe in 1993 at the University of Zimbabwe; the second in Uganda in 1994 at Makerere University; and the third in Ghana in 1995 at the University of Ghana. In 1997, Vietnam started a PHSWOW in collaboration with the Hanoi School of Public Health.

As of 2000, in addition to EIS, there were 27 Applied Epidemiology Training Programs, including 20 FETPs, 4 PHSWOWs, and 3 other Applied Epidemiology Training Programs (the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training [EPIET], the WHO Global Health Leadership Officers Programme [GHLOP], and the WHO/AFRO Programme d’Epi-demiologie Pratique [PEP]). Of 19 programs over 4 years old, 18 (95%) continue to produce graduates. Thus far, it is estimated that the 27 Applied Epidemiology Training Programs have trained more than 900 international public health leaders in epidemiology and outbreak investigation. Approximately 420 more are currently in training.