Public health educational intervention in a family medicine residency

Emerging infections and bioterrorism pose increasing threats to the health of our communities. To protect patients, frontline providers like family physicians must learn and use core public health skills such as disease detection, surveillance, and response activities. This paper describes a unique approach to teaching these core public health skills by incorporating residents into ongoing disease surveillance and reporting activities in coordination with the local health department. Comparison of pre- and post-intervention surveys of residents demonstrated that this intervention increased resident self-perceived competency in disease detection and surveillance, knowledge of reportable conditions, and ability to engage response activities.