April 2025

The Field Epidemiology Program in Papua New Guinea is implemented by National Department of Health (NDOH), PNG and Field Epidemiology in Action (FEiA), University of Newcastle, Australia. Alongside the traditional field epidemiology competencies, FETP PNG also includes an operational research component where fellows design, implement and evaluate an intervention project to address pressing local public health issues. The successful projects have been generating important insights about opportunities to improve public health programs, creating the need for fellows to advocate for programmatic change.

In collaboration with NDOH and FEiA, the DIP adapted D2P program modules to conduct a five-day workshop for the advanced FETP program in 2022 and Intermediate Field Epidemiology Program (iFETP) cohort in September 2024. The fellows developed 21 policy briefs for their individual projects that covered a range of topics from infectious disease programs such as strengthening malaria surveillance system, improving access to potable water for reducing diarrhea in children, improving Acute Flaccid Paralysis surveillance and syndromic surveillance of diseases.

Based on this experience and feedback from the fellows and FETP faculty, the DIP team collaborated with Field Epidemiology in Action (FEiA) and the University of Newcastle, Australia to integrate some of the D2P modules across the 9-month curriculum of iFETP. This new version of the iFETP with D2P modules integrated throughout was rolled out for the current cohort in February 2025.

In April 2025, a five-day D2P Training the Trainers Workshop was conducted in Port Moresby, PNG. The participants included 7 FETP faculty from PNG and 6 FETP faculty members from Solomon Islands. The facilitator team from DIP and FEiA mentored the participants to familiarize them with the policy brief development content, pedagogy, facilitation and mentoring skills. The selected D2P modules will be incorporated in the curriculum for in-person workshops for iFETP fellows. The training also provided a forum for cross-country learning between PNG and Solomon Islands.