Learning interventions and training methods in health emergencies: A scoping review.

Background: Keeping the health workforce and the public informed about the latest evolving health information during a health emergency is critical to preventing, detecting and responding to infectious disease outbreaks or other health emergencies. Having a well-informed, ready, willing, and skilled workforce and an informed public can help save lives, reduce diseases and suffering, and minimize socio-economic loss in affected communities and countries. Providing "just in time" support and opportunities for learning in health emergencies is much needed for capacity building.

Health Care Workers' Motivations for Enrolling in Massive Open Online Courses During a Public Health Emergency: Descriptive Analysis.

Background: Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are increasingly used to educate health care workers during public health emergencies. In early 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed a series of MOOCs for COVID-19, introducing the disease and strategies to control its outbreak, with 6 courses specifically targeting health care workers as learners. In 2020, Stanford University also launched a MOOC designed to deliver accurate and timely education on COVID-19, equipping health care workers across the globe to provide health care safely and effectively to patients with the novel infectious disease.

Online capacity building for the health workforce: the case of the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response for the African region.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) has developed a comprehensive capacity devel-opment programme to support the successful implementation of the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response 3rd edition Technical Guidelines (IDSR). As part of the learning program, a series of asyn-chronous online courses are offered on OpenWHO in English, French and Portuguese. This paper describes the use of five IDSR online courses and reports on feedback received from learners on Course 1 in the English series.

Using Digital Tools to Train Health Emergencies Personnel in Fragile Contexts.

The Leadership in Emergencies learning programme, launched in 2019, was designed to strengthen the competencies of World Health Organization (WHO) and Member State staff in teamwork, decision-making and communication, key skills required to lead effectively in emergencies. While the programme was initially used to train 43 staff in a workshop setting, the COVID-19 pandemic required a new remote approach. An online learning environment was developed using a variety of digital tools including WHO's open learning platform, OpenWHO.

Scale Up Multilingualism in Health Emergency Learning: Developing an Automated Transcription and Translation Tool.

World Health Organization's (WHO) emergency learning platform OpenWHO provided by Hasso Plattner Institut (HPI) delivered online learning in real-time and in multiple languages during the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge was to move from manual transcription and translation to automated to increase the speed and quantity of materials and languages available. TransPipe tool was introduced to facilitate this task.

Online learning for WHO priority diseases with pandemic potential: evidence from existing courses and preparing for Disease X.

Background: OpenWHO is the open-access learning platform of the World Health Organization (WHO) that provides online learning for health emergencies with essential health knowledge for emergencies. There is emphasis for courses on severe emerging diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential to help frontline health workers prevent, control and respond to infectious diseases. This research addresses the question of how the existing OpenWHO online courses on infectious disease were used in the countries of disease occurrence and how to prepare for disease X, a novel or unknown pathogen with pandemic potential.

Digitalizing WHO's Health Emergency Leadership Training During the Pandemic.

The WHO Health Emergencies Programme combined online tools with adult learning techniques to develop an innovative online leadership course. A combination of self-paced learning and online classes were used to deliver skills-based leadership training tailored to public health staff working in emergency response roles. Although using an online approach was considered a temporary solution to counter travel restrictions during the pandemic, the advantages have challenged preconceptions that effective learning, networking and peer exchange for leadership can only be achieved through face-to-face learning.

Digital Transformation of Face-To-Face Focus Group Methodology: Engaging a Globally Dispersed Audience to Manage Institutional Change at the World Health Organization.

Focus group discussions (FGDs) are widely used to obtain qualitative data from purposely selected groups of people. This paper describes how the Learning and Capacity Development (LCD) unit of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) digitalized FGDs to engage with WHO staff from around the world, to listen, share, and collect their feedback in the development of a WHO learning framework. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the introduction of local lockdowns and travel restrictions resulted in the wide use of digital platforms, such as Zoom, for employee communications and collaboration capable of reaching employees wherever they are working.

Multilingual Approach to COVID-19 Online Learning Response on OpenWHO.org.

In pursuit of equitable access to emergency-related knowledge, the World Health Organization (WHO) translates COVID-19 and other infectious disease courses into multiple languages on its open-access online learning platform OpenWHO.org. Languages spoken by vulnerable or underserved populations in low- and middle-income countries and in outbreak-prone and affected areas are prioritized.

Learning From a Massive Open Online COVID-19 Vaccination Training Experience: Survey Study.

Background: To prepare key stakeholders for the global COVID-19 vaccination rollout, the World Health Organization and partners developed online vaccination training packages. The online course was launched in December 2020 on the OpenWHO learning platform. This paper presents the findings of an evaluation of this course.

Delivering WHO's Life-Saving Information in Real-Time During a Pandemic Through an Online Learning Platform: Evidence from Global Use.

Accessibility, multilingualism and real-time knowledge transfer are the tenets of the OpenWHO learning platform. A descriptive analysis was conducted using anonymised statistical datasets retrieved from the OpenWHO reporting system to understand global use trends. When examining OpenWHO use in the areas with the highest burden of COVID-19 cases, a strong correlation was identified between the burden of COVID-19 and OpenWHO user activity.

One Year of Pandemic Learning Response: Benefits of Massive Online Delivery of the World Health Organization's Technical Guidance.

The World Health Organization (WHO) launched the first web-based learning course on COVID-19 on January 26, 2020, four days before the director general of the WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern. The WHO is expanding access to web-based learning for COVID-19 through its open-learning platform for health emergencies, OpenWHO. Throughout the pandemic, OpenWHO has continued to publish learning offerings based on the WHO's emerging evidence-based knowledge for managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

'I don't want anyone to know': Experiences of obtaining access to HIV testing by Eastern European, non-European Union sex workers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Historically, the Netherlands has hosted a large number of migrant sex workers. Since sex work is considered a legal profession it might serve as an example of better access to health services, including HIV testing, at least for those working within the legal framework. However, migrant sex workers, especially non-European Union (EU) nationals, might not be eligible to register for official employment and thus face obstacles in obtaining access to health services, becoming essentially invisible.

HIV testing behaviour and HIV prevalence among female sex workers in Ukraine: findings from an Integrated Bio-Behavioural Survey, 2013-2014.

Objectives: Ukraine has one of the largest HIV epidemics in Europe, with high prevalence among female sex workers (FSWs). We aimed to identify factors associated with HIV testing and receipt of the test result in the last 12 months, HIV prevalence and self-reported positive status among FSWs in Ukraine.

Methods: We used data from an Integrated Bio-Behavioural Survey among FSWs conducted in 2013-2014.

'Virus Carriers' and HIV testing: navigating Ukraine's HIV policies and programming for female sex workers.

Background: There are an estimated 80,100 female sex workers (FSWs) in Ukraine, of whom 7% are living with HIV. Early HIV diagnosis continues to be a public health priority in Ukraine as only approximately 54% of people living with HIV are diagnosed nationwide. This study aims to analyse the content, context and discourse of HIV testing policies among female sex workers in Ukraine and how these policies are understood and implemented in practice.

HIV Testing and Counseling Among Female Sex Workers: A Systematic Literature Review.

HIV testing uptake continues to be low among Female Sex Workers (FSWs). We synthesizes evidence on barriers and facilitators to HIV testing among FSW as well as frequencies of testing, willingness to test, and return rates to collect results. We systematically searched the MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, SCOPUS databases for articles published in English between January 2000 and November 2017.