March 2026

Over the course of five days in March 2026, 21 field epidemiology training program (FETP) fellows from 10 countries across the Asia-Pacific region convened in Bangkok, Thailand, to participate in a regional scientific communications workshop. The aim of the workshop was to build skills in the translation of scientific findings for various audiences and in writing scientific manuscripts based on field epidemiology data.

The Thailand Ministry of Health’s Division of Epidemiology, which runs Thailand’s FETP program, hosted the training in collaboration with the CDC Foundation. Sessions were co-facilitated by 13 trainers from 10 countries, all of whom completed the scientific communications training of trainers prior to the regional workshop. The trainers also served as mentors to workshop participants, who were tasked with developing manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Jeyanthini Sathasivam, an FETP graduate and public health medicine specialist at Malaysia’s Ministry of Health, was one of the workshop facilitators and mentors. “Part of epidemiology work is disseminating the information that we have,” she said. “Most of us tend to do work but not put it out there, which could be comparable to other countries or could be a learning exercise for another country.”

Participants developed their skills in transforming data into evidence, which serves as a critical foundation for evidence-based public health. They also learned about structure and components of scientific writing for peer-reviewed journals; how artificial intelligence can be used ethically as a tool to streamline the editorial process; and best practices for the development of data visualizations for manuscripts, posters and presentations.

“For an epidemiologist, sharing what you do is equally as important as what you have been doing on the ground,” Dr. Sathasivam said.

Following the completion of the workshop, participants developed a total of 21 scientific manuscripts, contributing to the translation of field epidemiology knowledge into internationally recognized academic outputs. The manuscripts cover a wide range of topics, including a measles outbreak investigation in Indonesia, a situational analysis of rabies cases in Timor-Leste, and an investigation of a pertussis outbreak in a school in Thailand. Workshop participants plan to move forward with submitting their completed manuscripts for publication in scientific journals.