COVID-19 continues to pose a challenge on every aspect of life as we know it. Ever since it was declared a pandemic by the WHO in March 2020, countries around the world remain critically challenged with the continuous rise in the number of cases and hospitalizations. From another angle, the pandemic has also brought focus to the public health capacity dimension, whereby despite its importance, this dimension is not adequately covered especially in the discussions around COVID-19 in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR). In this region, most of the countries are already facing an overall shortage of healthcare workers. They are also dealing with strengthening the competencies of their healthcare workers, as well as the challenges of geographical maldistribution.

On Tuesday, January 12, 2021, EMPHNET collaborated with the Association of Arab Universities to tackle these issues in a webinar titled “COVID-19 and the Health Workforce: Implications for Public Health Capacity”

The session was led by a panel of four health experts including: the Coordinator for Health Workforce Development at the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Dr. Fethiye Gedik Gulin; Director of the Agency for Public Health Education Accreditation (APHEA) in Brussels, Dr. Julien Goodman; Health Workforce Consultant and Chairperson of the Community Medicine Council of the Arab Board for Health Specialties, Dr. Elsheikh Badr, and Research Professor at Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health and Managing Partner at Public Health Practice, LLC , Dr. Scott JN McNabb.

Furthermore, the session was facilitated by the Secretary General of the Association of Arab Universities. Dr Amer Salama; and Executive Director, EMPHNET Dr. Mohannad Al Nsour.

Dr. Mohannad Al Nsour commenced the session by giving a brief on COVID-19 and introducing the webinar topic. More specifically, he talked about the impact of the COVID-19 global crisis on the distribution and competencies of the health workforce capacities in the EMR. He then went on to introduce his co-facilitator and participating experts.

Starting off the presentation sessions, Dr. Gulin stated that this webinar comes at the perfect time, especially since the year 2021 is declared the international year of health and care workers as designated by the WHO World Health Assembly in October 2020. She also pointed out that to the best of her knowledge, this webinar is the first to be held on health workforce regionally and also globally. The presenter then moved on to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on public health workforces, specifically stating that the health professional education was disrupted, and that the COVID-19 pandemic showed that the skill mix required from healthcare workers is different today than it was only one year ago. She pointed out that the current epidemiological situation uncovered a need for more public health professionals with greater knowledge of population health, better understanding of public health principles, better knowledge and understanding of teamwork, better knowledge in health systems, leadership skills, and ability to engage with communities.

The second presenter, Dr. Elsheikh Badr spoke about public health and the health workforce in the EMR. He stated that in the region, public health is undermined in the educational curricula. He further recommended that more emphasis be given on career pathways for public health professionals, as well as having protocols and guidelines for the workforce in this domain. He further added that there is a need for more publishing opportunities in public health journals for this segment of the workforce.

According to Dr Badr, a clearer agenda needs to be set for the public health workforce. This agenda should be developed based on priorities, innovative funding, and the building of capacities and methodologies. He finally pointed out that regional networks, public health associations, and global public health platforms have a role to play in mobilizing resources and strengthening public health workforce capacities as well. 

From his end, Dr. Julien Goodman spoke about the Agency for Public Health Education and Accreditation. He pointed out that the COVID-19 imposed lockdowns exposed several gaps facing the public health workforce. Such gaps include a lack of access to learning resources, whereby resources such as libraries, careers, and welfare needed to integrate online accessibility in their infrastructure. Faculties needed to rapidly support remote learning, and with this came the challenge of gaps in technology know-how for some members of the public health workforce. He, however, stated that this call does not imply that we should dispense with traditional learning but instead we should adopt a more blended approach.

The last presenter for the evening, Dr. Scott JN McNabb, stated that there is an eminent need to modernize global health security measures and that this could only be achieved by developing the skillset and access to knowledge available to public health workforces. He advocated blended learning while surveying the pros and cons of adopting online learning approaches.

Following these presentations, Dr. Al Nsour wrapped up the discussion and highlighted the main recommendations. Dr. Salama ended the session by thanking the speakers, the facilitator, and the audience. A total of 230 persons attended the webinar. Participants actively contributed  to  the  discussions through their comments and questions.