The World Health Organization is celebrating a new
milestone in online learning: 7 million enrolments in OpenWHO.org’s free public health courses!
The record-setting participation comes as health
emergencies continue to affect communities across the globe, generating demand
for trusted and accessible public health knowledge. OpenWHO course enrolments
have surged more than 4000% percent in just over 2.5 years, increasing from 160
000 in January 2020 to 7 million in August 2022.
The OpenWHO platform hosts courses on 165 public health topics, including
training to support the response to outbreaks like the COVID-19 pandemic,
monkeypox, polio, cholera, Marburg virus disease and plague, as well as for
ongoing events like food insecurity and the crisis in Ukraine.
Courses are available in 65 languages – most recently
adding Georgian to the offering – so that
communities can access life-saving public health information in their native
languages, making it easier to understand. This includes the 15 most
commonly spoken languages worldwide and the official languages of 44 out of 46
of the least-developed countries.
More than 3.7 million course certificates have been issued
to OpenWHO learners, who have shared more than 50 000 digital badges on social
media to celebrate their achievements.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for people across
the world to access the trusted, science-based public health information that
they need,” said Heini Utunen, acting Head of the WHO Health Emergencies
Programme’s Learning and Capacity Development Unit, which manages the OpenWHO
platform. “Equity is the cornerstone of our learning response to health
emergencies.”
OpenWHO’s global community of learners recently shared
examples of how they have benefited from the learning platform at an open
webinar celebrating OpenWHO’s 5th
anniversary.
“I have learned many things about the COVID-19 pandemic
from courses of the OpenWHO programme,” one learner said. “It literally helps
me to speak with my local community. Because I am a pharmacist, I have been
asked so many questions about risk, possibilities and about medications and I
have shared the knowledge that I got from professionals from these courses.”
“I would like to thank everyone who contributed to
developing this wonderful idea and providing this valuable information for
free,” said another OpenWHO learner.
OpenWHO: Open to all, anytime, from anywhere. Start learning today.
