Environmental Health Training Critique

Introduction

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has integrated several courses to disseminate training to individuals and the general public to ensure the proper public knowledge on sustaining healthy environments. The evaluation of these courses offered by the CDC is essential to ensure the effectiveness of the programs. The evaluation of these programs may follow specific evaluation criteria such as the Kirkpatrick model. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the Safe Water Program Improvement e-Learning Series (SWPI).

The approach used by the SWPI

The SWPI uses an online learning approach to disseminate knowledge to the learners. This is by training individuals on courses, including an introductory course covering ten essential environmental public health services and how they relate to Unregulated Drinking Water Systems (UDWS). Secondly, the SWPI program offers an Assessment course that enables the monitoring of Health, diagnosing and investigating of UDWS-related issues. Also, the SWPI offers policy development courses that aim to Inform, Educate, Empower, and Mobilize learners on the development of policies and plans. Also, the SWPI offers several assurance courses, including Laws and Regulations, Linking People to Services, Assuring a Competent Workforce, and Evaluation and Research courses. These courses’ learning takes about one hour for the shortest course and about two hours for the longest course. The SWPI recommends that learners take all nine courses to develop the best knowledge outcome from the learning program. However, learners can also choose specific courses, but the introduction course is required to ensure the understanding of the courses.

Effectiveness of the SWPI in meeting requirements of the safe drinking water policy

The SWPI effectively meets the requirements of the safe drinking water policy as it helps improve the water systems that the Safe Drinking Water Act does not effectively cover. Such water systems include wells, springs, cisterns, and other private water drinking systems. By providing effective education regarding the use of these water systems, the SWPI effectively ensures meeting the safe drinking water policy requirements. These courses offered by the SWPI equip learners with knowledge regarding the safe use of these water sources and ways to fill gaps in these types of drinking water programs. According to the CDC website, about one in nine American residents acquire their drinking water from a private water system such as a well (Center for Disease Control, 2019). Additionally, about one in five sampled private wells contained contaminants at levels that could harm human health. As such, the safe water improvement program is an essential and practical learning program to ensure the added effectiveness of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Effectiveness of the SWPI in Meeting the needs of the intended Audience

The safe water Improvement e-learning program effectively meets the needs of its Audience according to the assessment of learners’ views and the community impact. According to the evaluation of the learner’s knowledge, more than four out of five learners were able to identify specific actions that could result in their jobs as a result of undertaking the SWPI courses. Additionally, nine out of ten learners would recommend the SWPI program to colleagues (Center for Disease Control, 2019). According to a pilot tester comment, a learner was planning to utilize the ten essential services that they had learned from the SWPI program after identifying them since the learner never knew that these essential services existed before undertaking the SWPI courses. Additionally, another learner identified that the course had enabled him to think more about unregulated drinking water instead of focusing on public water sources. Also, the learner identified that the course had equipped him with answers to questions from people using unregulated water sources (Center for Disease Control, 2019). As such, the review of pilot tester comments and the tests of the SWPI course among drinking water and other environmental health staff outlines the effectiveness of the SWPI project in meeting the needs of its intended Audience as it can equip the learners with the intended knowledge.

Questions regarding the evaluation of the SWPI program

1. Does the SWPI effectively describe the effective methods for investigating and diagnosing Unregulated Drinking Water Systems related diseases?
2. Does the SWPI program equip learners with practical skills to create effective policies to address the UDW related issues?
3. Does the SWPI equip learners with adequate skills to create a competent environmental health workforce to carry out environmental health programs like the UDWS?
4. To what extent is the community being reached by the learning program information and materials?
5. How effective is the program in ensuring the safety of the use of unregulated water sources?

Academic rationale for the evaluation criteria used in the evaluation of the SWPI

The evaluation criteria used in the evaluation of the SWPI program are essential to ensure the complete assessment of the program’s effectiveness in disseminating information. The evaluation of the SWPI follows a Kirkpatrick Model of evaluation of learning programs. Using this model in the evaluation of the SWPI program is essential to ensure the complete assessment of the program’s effectiveness. The Kirkpatrick model is integrated with the evaluation of the SWPI through the evaluation of four levels that are designed to measure specific elements of training, including reaction, learning, behaviour and results (Kirkpatrick Partners, 2017). Most significantly, the Kirkpatrick level three and four components that evaluate Behavior and results, respectively, were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the SWPI. These components were used to assess the program’s effectiveness by assessing the workplace’s transfer and use of skills. The level three component identified that the knowledge acquired from the training program was effectively transferred to the workplace and integrated into practice. The use of the Kirkpatrick model’s level three and four components was based on assumptions that the skills integrated into the workplace were acquired from the courses offered in the SWPI.

Conclusion

Evaluating learning courses is essential to ensure that these courses effectively meet the intended audiences. Such evaluations may follow the Kirkpatrick model, which evaluates the essential aspects of learning. The SWPI evaluation follows the Kirkpatrick model and integrates the level 3 and 4 aspects of evaluation. The creation of questions during the evaluation of an academic program is also essential for identifying areas that may require further modification to ensure the effectiveness of a program.

References

Center for Disease Control. (2019, April 23). Safe Water Program Improvement e-Learning Series (SWPI). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/elearn/swpi.html

Kirkpatrick Partners. (2017). The Kirkpatrick model. Retrieved from www.kirkpatrickpartners.com/OurPhilosophy/TheKirkpatrickModel