Injury prevention and safety promotion course in a Russian Master of Public Health programme

The Global Burden of Disease Studies describe and emphasise injury as a major and increasing component in the panorama of global ill health. Russia has the one of the highest injury rates in Europe. When a Master in Public Health programme was planned and started in 2007 in Arkhangelsk, Russia, under the auspices of University of Tromsø, Norway, a course on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion was included. A take-over programme (training-the-trainers) was implemented within the course. The present paper describes the course content, the students and their background, the training-the-trainers programme, the evaluation procedure and its results. So far, 53 students have passed the course, 77% being female. The majority of students were medical doctors (51%), psychologists (11%), pedagogues (9%), dentists (6%) and nurses (6%). The take-over programme has functioned well by gradually using students of excellence as teachers. In 2012, the take-over programme is completed and only Russians teach. Evaluation by students of the course content, organisation and pedagogic approach was useful for improvements.