Principal Investigator: Victoria Ward, MD, Stanford Center for Health Education

Research Team: Jamie Johnston, PhD, Stanford Center for Health Education; Nadine Ann Skinner, PhD, Stanford Center for Health Education; Elham Arabi, PhD, World Health Organization; Anna Tokar, PhD, World Health Organization; Heini Utunen, PhD, World Health Organization; Charles Prober, MD, Stanford Center for Health Education; Matthew Strehlow, MD, Stanford Emergency Medicine

Funders: Department of Emergency Medicine, Center for Innovation in Global Health

For this grant-funded project, an interdisciplinary Stanford team will collaborate with the WHO Health Emergencies Program, which manages OpenWHO, a web-based platform that offers online courses to people working in pandemics and other health emergencies. They will investigate how to better develop and disseminate online training for managing health emergencies in order to help low-resource settings prepare for Disease X, the next as-yet unknown pathogen to cause a pandemic.

“Open online courses are an incredible platform through which health professionals can quickly reach a broad range of learners with critical health information,” said Principal Investigator Dr. Victoria Ward. “When disease outbreaks occur, such a platform is invaluable. We are thrilled to work with the WHO Health Emergencies Program to understand how to make open online courses more accessible, equitable, and impactful.”