WHO Collaborating Centre on Learning During Health Emergencies

As of December 2024, the Stanford Center for Health Education (SCHE) is a designated World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre on Learning During Health Emergencies.

When a crisis strikes, it is the knowledge and readiness of our healthcare providers that safeguard public health. This center aims to establish evidence-based strategies for health education preparedness and response to health emergencies of all kinds. 

This Collaborating Centre aims to provide technical assistance and support to research and implement the WHO’s efforts to (1) support educational programs for the health workforce during health crises and (2) construct a solid evidence foundation for educational strategies and training methods on preparation and response to health emergencies.

Leadership

	Dr. Matthew Strehlow, MD, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine
	Dr. Jamie Johnston, PhD, Director of Research and Evaluation at the Stanford Center for Health Education and its Digital Medic program

“The WHO team reached out after learning about our open-access course, COVID-19 Training for Healthcare Workers. We then connected around their work and began looking at the gaps in how we reach people for just-in-time training during health emergencies, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. Over the past three years, our partnership with WHO has uncovered critical weaknesses in health emergency training. Through this center, we’re addressing these challenges, delivering just-in-time learning when it’s needed most.” - Dr. Matthew Strehlow

“We are thrilled to draw from the expertise of our colleagues at the Stanford Center for Health Education to strengthen learning for health emergency preparedness and response, including through the demanding areas of research and evaluation. This collaboration will play a vital role in our efforts to keep people safe in health emergencies whenever and wherever the next crisis strikes.” - Dr. Heini Utunen, PhD, Head of Learning and Capacity Development for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme

This centre is the third collaborating centre at Stanford, following the WHO Collaborating Centre on Antimicrobial Resistance and Stewardship established in 2019 and WHO Collaborating Centre for Classifications, Terminologies and Standards established in 2014.

Achievements to Date

To be designated a WHO collaborating centre, an institution must demonstrate at least two years of productive, collaborative work with the WHO. WHO-Stanford joint research and publications to date include:

• “Healthcare Workers’ Motivations for Enrolling in Massive Open Online Courses During a Public Health Emergency: Evidence from a Case Study of COVID-19 Training” (JMIR Medical Education)
• “Massive Online Open Courses for Emergency Health: Analysis of Global Use, Adaptation, and Sharing of Courses on the OpenWHO Platform” (JMIR)
• “Preparing for Disease X: Collaborating with OpenWHO to improve digital education readiness for health emergencies” (In progress as part of the seed grant program from the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health.)
• Presentation of joint work at academic conferences including the following:
  • 2nd International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA), December 2022, Kigali Rwanda
  • Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH) Annual Conference, January 2024, Stanford, CA USA 
  • Consortium for Universities in Global Health (CUGH) Annual Conference, March 2024, Los Angeles, CA USA
  • 12th International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) European Conference on Health Promotion, June 2024. Lodz, Poland 

Additionally, Stanford faculty have served as external experts and guest editors for the “WHO implementation guidance on emergencies capacity-building” and a Special Edition of the Frontiers in Public Health journal to fill research gaps for “Learning Interventions and Training: Providing Support during Health Emergencies.” The teams have since launched a global community of practice dedicated to advancing these learnings.

Terms of Reference 

1. Provide technical assistance to WHO to research practices for just-in-time digital learning for healthcare workers during emergencies. The collaborating centre will (1) gather information on health workforce needs and motivations for learning activities, (2) assess the quality of the learning experience, and (3) investigate the impact of learning resources on the knowledge, skills acquisition and sharing of health information within the communities and personal and professional networks of learners. 
2. Provide technical assistance to WHO to assess the quality and impact of health emergency educational content. The research will investigate the impact of course participation on learner experience and satisfaction, knowledge, skills acquisition and dissemination of course information within the communities and personal and professional networks of learners.
3. Provide technical assistance to WHO to evaluate and analyze scientific evidence in order to form best practices and actionable recommendations for health emergencies learning, including guidance reports that will be shared with WHO technical and science teams to contribute to improvement in the design and distribution of online health education for health emergencies.

Questions? Please reach out to stanfordhealtheducation@stanford.edu.

Project Collaborators