The Training Center for Spanish-Speaking Public Health
Professionals provides education in Spanish to public
health professionals to improve the level of formal training
for public health workforce.

The Need

This statement may surprise you: Less than 8 percent of the
public health workforce in Texas has received formal training
in public health.

Of the 92 percent that could potentially benefit from some form of public health training, we can only speculate what
proportion of them speak Spanish as a first language.

Moreover, what proportion of our state's total public health workforce speak only English, and could improve their
effectiveness and confidence if they could converse and "conduct business" in the native tongue of those they serve?

The UNT Health Science Center's School of Public Health has already begun to address this extraordinary need for
education. We've taken the lead in a federally funded initiative by all three of Texas' public health schools to serve
public health workers across the state through a network of training centers.

The next logical step: Provide that education in Spanish. With one-third of the faculty being bilingual in
English/Spanish, UNTHSC is uniquely qualified for the job.

Our Goals

During the first three years (the period of activity covered by this proposal), our Training Center for Spanish-
Speaking Public Health Professionals hope to achieve the following goals:

* Develop and conduct eight training sessions of five days each.

* Enroll at least 40 in each of the eight training sessions, for a total of 320 workers trained in Spanish.

*Offer travel scholarships to 20 in-state participants during each session, for a total of 160 workers who
otherwise might not be able to attend this training in Fort Worth.

* Finalize agreements to train, and begin training, via distance-learning technology, employees of the Texas
Department of Health and municipal health departments across the state.

Our Plan

With the support of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation .

We will develop, market and conduct on our Fort Worth campus a training program that is the first of its
kind in Texas, and one of very few in the world.

Our intensive one-to-two-week curriculum will provide multi-level training in epidemiology, health law,
sanitation, health promotion, infectious disease and other public health specialty areas.

Our audience will include workers in all the public health fields, as well as government officials, civic
administrators, physicians, nurses, clinic and hospital staff, social service workers, academicians and
r esearchers who:

*  are bilingual (English/Spanish) and serve or intend to serve a population that is primarily Hispanic

* are monolingual (Spanish) and serve a monolingual Spanish-speaking Hispanic population.

*  are monolingual (English) and serve a population that is primarily Hispanic.

We will offer this unique curriculum throughout Texas via distance-learning technology.

We have completed the renovation of one of our three major auditorium-style classrooms into a state-of-the-art
distance learning facility using Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Board grant funds. With further
funding, we can link our campus facility to classrooms or training facilities across the state, including the UNT
System Center in Dallas.

Texas' Health Commissioner, Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, has expressed a strong interest in partnering with us
and the Texas Department of Health to increase the level of training available to public health personnel
throughout the state.