Maternal and child health (MCH) is a growing concern among the countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) where economic issues
and changing infrastructures are seriously deteriorating the public health system. Moreover, in the past decade, lack of primary
prevention programs coupled with a shortage of well-trained public health professionals are having an increasingly negative
impact on MCH outcomes. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the current state of MCH, health care and public health
education in the FSU. We suggest that indices could be improved by developing new inexpensive information exchange systems,
and that system is Supercourse (accessible at www.pitt.edu/∼super1). Supercourse is an Internet-based library of public health
lectures in PowerPoint format that are accessible, free of charge to anyone, anywhere, who has Internet access including scientists,
doctors, and, specifically, educators. As of April 2007, Supercourse has more than 3,200 public health lectures, a network
of more than 42,000 faculty members across 151 countries, with Nobel Prize winners and the former head of the CDC being among
the lectures’ authors. Supercourse lectures are aimed at the educator with the goal of improving public health training through
timely and customizable lectures. The distinguishing features of Supercourse are ease of access in low-bandwidth lecture,
minimal cost, a distribution system for lectures in CD format, high-quality content, and the capacity to create and sustain
a global network of public health professionals. Additionally, statistical process control procedures for industry developed
by W. Edwards Deming are utilized to ensure the quality of Supercourse lectures. Papers on Supercourse already have been published
in the
British Medical Journal,
Nature, and
Lancet, and are having a wide impact in the field of public health. Currently, an increasing number of lectures in the Supercourse
library are dedicated to the theme of MCH. Low cost, high impact projects such as Supercourse are needed to improve and deploy
MCH education worldwide.
Keywords Maternal and Child Health - Former Soviet Union countries - Epidemiology - Education - Internet