Join Maine Public Health Association for a 10-part webinar series, funded generously through the New England Public Health Training Center. The webinar series starts with an Introduction to Public Health, including an overview of Maine’s public heath system, and roles and responsibilities in public health; then launches into more detail about disease outbreaks and surveillance. All events will have time for questions and answers, and are free and open to the public, except where indicated. The webinars are intended for a general audience, but even the most seasoned public health professional will glean new information! You may register for any or all of the webinars during the registration process (Separate registration is required for the May 14th forum. Link provided in the description.)

This webinar series is designated for Certified Health Education Specialists (CHES) and/or Master Certified Health Education Specialists (MCHES) to receive up to 1 total Category I continuing education contact hours. Provider and event ID will be provided during the webinar.

Monday, June 8th, 2pm – 3pm: Investigating an Outbreak

Sharon McDonnell, BSN, MD, MPH, adjunct faculty at University of New Hampshire & Nicoleta Toma, MD, Preventive Medicine Fellow at Maine Medical Center, will lead this webinar, which will describe the process of outbreak investigation in confirmed events and continue the steps of field outbreak investigation. We will use COVID-19 and smaller outbreaks to illustrate these steps.

Monday, June 15th, 2pm – 3pm: Looking at Data in an Outbreak

Richard Shen, MD, Infectious Disease Fellow at Maine Medical Center & Gib Parrish, MD, adjunct faculty at University of New Hampshire, will lead this webinar, which emphasizes descriptive epidemiology using data collected during outbreak investigation. We will be answering what information do we collect during outbreak investigation to build towards developing a hypothesis that we can use to implement control measures or conduct research?

Monday, June 22nd, 2pm – 3pm: Control and Prevention Strategies in Epidemics

Sharon McDonnell, BSN, MD, MPH adjunct faculty at University of New Hampshire & Katherine Nenninger, MD, currently in the Leadership in Preventive Medicine Fellowship training program through Maine Medical Center, will lead this webinar. For all outbreaks, the notion is to “break the chain” and to break it in as many places as possible. These processes have to balance civic liberty, community motivation, and ownership, as well as economic stability. We will look at both nonpharmaceutical interventions for pandemic control, including social distancing and contact tracing, and the promise of vaccination and case management tools, such as drugs, that influence the course and outcome. We will discuss monitoring and following outbreaks to assess the adequacy of control measures and tradeoffs, and use stories from Ebola, COVID-19 and other outbreaks to illustrate these concepts.