According to the CDC bulletin, January, February, March 1949, “The Communicable Disease Center, with a background of successful achievements in training workers for the fields of malaria and rodent-borne disease control, has established several regional field-training centers during 1946, 1947, and 1948, in order to more effectively assist all the States with practical training (internship type) of public health personnel. These regional training centers established through the cooperative effort of State and local health departments are located as follows: Southeastern section of U. S.-Atlanta, Columbus, Albany, and Savannah, Ga.; Northeastern section of U.S. - Albany and Troy, N.Y.; Midwestern section of U.S. - Cincinnati, Ohio, and Topeka, Kans.; Western or Rocky Mountain section - Denver, Colo.

Presented in this Bullet in are short summaries -prepared by Training Division training officers- of field training courses carried on during the past 2 years. Reference to these articles will develop the point that this practical training falls into two categories. (l) In-service training for CDC personnel; and insect and rodent control training for foreign visitors who have taken academic courses at the universities here in the United States, and who desire to participate in the application of these public health principles about which they have studied. (2) Field training of both professional and nonprofessional personnel for nearly all types of workers employed by local, State, or Federal health authorities. These include health officers, sanitary engineers, sanitarians (professional grade), and health educators; and in the nonprofessional category, sanitary inspectors, sanitarians for milk and food sanitation control, rodent- and insect-borne disease control, and public health department records personnel. The field training centers have been strategically located with the thought of using them as focal points from which assistance in training could be rendered to States that already have established, or intend to develop, field training facilities of their own. Many States, including Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas, California, and Michigan, have developed, with financial assistance from certain foundations, effective field-training activities. Others are in the process of doing so. It is the aim of the Training Division to help all the States- by loan of personnel and by furnishing training aids such as motion pictures, film strips, manuals, and equipment- to develop the most essential facilities, in order that these 50,000 people mentioned by Dr. Scheele may be quickly trained and started on their important work of preventing disease through well-conceived and efficiently executed programs in local health departments. In the following brief summaries, several of the training officers at headquarters of the Training Division in Atlanta and at regional training centers throughout the country have outlined the organization and conduct of the different types of field training. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that without the sympathetic and enthusiastic support of the directors of these local and State health departments where training activities are under way, no effective field training can be carried on by the Public Health Service.”