Sexually Transmitted Disease

Training/Educational Opportunities

These trainings are designed for the public health professional. They are intended to provide both introductory, as well as intensive training for disease intervention specialist, public health educators, and other professionals that provide education, screening, treatment, or tracking of STDs throughout the state of Georgia.

STD Course Descriptions

Introduction to STD Intervention (ISTDI)

This 2-week course is designed for full-time disease intervention specialists. It emphasizes the development of skills and techniques for interviewing STD patients in order to identify sex partners for referral to medical evaluation. It also focuses on how to help patients manage current infection and prevent future ones. Participants practice communication, problem solving, and motivation skills in role-plays, in which the participant receives feedback from the instructor. ISTDI content includes an introduction to visual case analysis for syphilis, case management, and medical aspects of STDs, and an explanation of intervention forms.

Fundamentals of STD Intervention

This 1-week course is designed for health care workers who interview STD patients on a limited basis. It provides participants with basic STD interviewing skills with a focus on conducting chlamydia and gonorrhea counseling sessions. The course addresses the basics of individual case analysis but does NOT provide in-depth training on syphilis case management and visual case analysis. Course content emphasizes improvement of healthful behaviors of STD patients and prompt referral of sex partners.

HIV Partner Counseling and Referral Services (PCRS)

This 3-day course provides health care personnel and counselors with the knowledge and skills to conduct partner counseling, elicitation, and field-oriented HIV partner notification. Participants develop skills by role-playing situations likely to be encountered in an HIV field investigation. A prerequisite for this course is the successful completion of the course Fundamentals of Prevention Counseling.

Chlamydia Partner Management for Family Planning Providers

This 1-day course assists family planning staff to facilitate a client-centered discussion of chlamydia infection and appropriately answer client concerns around partners. Discussion of key client motivators in explaining the benefits of partner referral to clients is addressed and also features information about all sex partner notification options, with an emphasis on client self-referral of partners for examination and treatment.

Partner Services and Referral for Health Care Professionals

The 1 to 3-day course is designed to enable health care professionals, especially in rural health care settings, to develop the skills, knowledge and techniques to better elicit, notify and refer sex partners of clients infected with STDs or HIV infection. This course is also available as a training-of-trainers for STD/HIV prevention program staff interested in obtaining the skills and materials needed to present this course independently in their local site. This course can be accomplished through distance learning methods using self-paced modules, or presented on-site as a classroom training. Students’ skills are evaluated through videotaped role-plays scenarios, and through pre- and post-course testing. Feedback is provided for both training settings. The 16-hour course on STD partner elicitation/notification can be expanded to 24 hours to include instruction on partner elicitation/notification for patients infected with HIV infection.

Training/Operations for Safety Around Field Encounters (TOPSAFE)

This 2-day interactive skill-building course is for public health professionals who are involved in fieldwork, such as full-time Disease Intervention Specialists or community outreach workers. Participants experience situations associated with basic safety principles, interpersonal communications, and problem solving. This course also is available in a self-study format

Advanced STD Intervention (ASTDI)

This 4-day course is designed to provide Disease Intervention Specialist (DIS) the necessary advanced skills in STD case management/case analysis, including VCA and advanced syphilis interviewing techniques to perform the comprehensive STD intervention required to address syphilis elimination objectives.

Eligibility and Pre-requisites: Participants must be DIS with more than 6 months experience and have successfully completed the “Introduction to STD Intervention” course

STD Intervention for Supervisors (STDIS)

This 4-day course is designed to develop supervisory technical skills in modeling, guiding, instructing, reviewing, and evaluating STD intervention activities. This course is designed for Supervisors responsible for formal technical evaluation of STD intervention. Participants are strongly encouraged to have completed the “Introduction to STD Intervention” and “Advanced STD Intervention” courses. This course is a companion course with Principles of STD Supervision.

Eligibility and Pre-requisites: This course is designed for Supervisors or lead DIS responsible for formal technical evaluation of STD intervention. Priority candidates are new (within the last year) or soon-to-be federal, state or local FLS of DIS. Participants are strongly encouraged to have completed the “Employee Development Guide” and the “Introduction to STD Intervention” course.

Principles of STD Supervision

This 4-day course concentrates on involved supervision (day-to-day performance review, observation, feedback, problem solving, constructive confrontation, documentation), and the development of associated communication and problem-solving skills. This course is targeted for supervisors of DIS. STDIS and Principles are companion courses hosted in the same city approximately 15 to 45 days apart.

Eligibility and Pre-requisites: This course is targeted for supervisors of DIS. Priority candidates are new (within the last year) or soon-to-be federal, state or local FLS of DIS. Participants are strongly encouraged to have completed the “STD Intervention for Supervisors” course.

Applied Epi Info for Occupational Use (AEIOU)

This 8-hour hands-on course is designed to train field personnel, such as Surveillance Coordinators to use Epi Info 6.04e for analysis. Participants must be responsible for analysis of STD data, such as Surveillance Coordinators; have PC experience; and use an STD information system, or similar data.

Eligibility and Pre-requisites: Participants must be responsible for analysis of STD data. In addition, participants must be familiar with STD program components and reporting methods used by laboratories and medical providers to STD programs.

Surveillance, Epidemiology and Data Management into Action (SEDACTION)

This 3-1/2-days hands-on course is designed to train field personnel, such as those responsible for data management and analysis, to clean, manage, analyze, interpret, and present STD data. Epi info 6.04d will be used throughout the course in a computer laboratory. By the end of the course, participants will:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of basic epidemiological definitions.
2. Describe the four types of surveillance (passive, active, sentinel, and electronic)
3. Describe syphilis case definitions.
4. Demonstrate knowledge of surveillance versus case management.
5. Assess data quality for completeness, validity, and timeliness using Epi Info.
6. Describe data in STD*MIS canned reports using epidemiological elements.
7. Calculate rates and percent change from STD*MIS canned morbidity reports.
8. Describe data using epidemiological elements.
9. Perform univariate and multivariate data analysis.
10. Develop graphical representations of data for epidemiologists from analyses performed.
11. Perform analysis to identify trends.
12. Identify further analysis or data modifications, such as behavioral surveillance, risk factor analysis, and STD surveillance Improvements.
13. Differentiate between data communication and dissemination.
14. Discuss appropriate written report to communicate analytic findings.

Eligibility and Pre-requisites: Participants must be required to analyze and interpret surveillance data. Participants must complete pre-course reading (Surveillance and Data Management and Outbreak Response Plan Program Operations Guidelines) and must have used Epi Info 6.04d or taken an Epi Info 6.04d course in the past 6 months. To assist with these pre-requisites, SEDACTION is always preceded by “Applied Epi Info for Occupational Use” (see above).Surveillance, Epidemiology and Data Management into Action (SEDACTION).