The George Institute and Duke University train students in Xi'an

The China International Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and The George Institute for Global Health, China held a series of training sessions at the School of Public Health at Xi’an Jiaotong University as part of the 4th Annual Chronic Disease Forum the Prevention and Management of Chronic Diseases and the Health Policy Roundtable.

Experts from The George Institute for Global Health and Duke University provided training to students and professionals on topics ranging from process and economic evaluations to ethics.

Dr Lynne Messer from Duke University kicked off the training sessions by discussing the importance of process evaluations. She highlighted how process evaluations allow researchers, program developers, and other key stakeholders understand the relationship between the context of a program and whether that program is actually doing its job.

Economic evaluation training was held over two days. Dr Eric Finkelstein from Duke University Graduate Medical School Singapore covered the types of economic evaluations and how to interpret the findings of economic evaluations. Dr Finkelstein presented real world applications and how decisions are often made based on the information gathered from these types of evaluations.

Dr Stephen Jan and Dr Merel Kimman from The George Institute, Australia conducted the second day of economic evaluation training by using practical, in-class problems to apply what attendees learned during the training.

“So much great information has been presented this week in the training sessions. I really enjoyed applying some of the concepts that I learned through exercises in class, so that we can try to solve issues around cost effectiveness and be able to ask questions from the instructors,” says Zhang Jian, a local student at the School of Public Health at Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Jody Power and Dr John Harrelson from the IRB of the Duke University School of Medicine rounded out the week’s training sessions on ethics for research with humans.

“Ms. Power and Dr Harrelson did a fantastic job of explaining how ethics committees and review boards came to be by showcasing historic examples of research with human subjects gone wrong. These notable and unfortunate events highlight the importance of ethics boards and oversight committees in academic research, both to keep people safe and also to ensure that there is something to be gained from research with human subjects,” said Matt Sebranek, a Visiting Research Fellow from Duke University at The George Institute, China.

The China International Center for Chronic Disease Prevention, The George Institute for Global Health, China, and Xi’an Jiaotong University are hosting the 4th Annual Chronic Disease Forum the Prevention and Management of Chronic Diseases and the Health Policy Roundtable on May 24-25 in Xi’an, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and UnitedHealth Group.