Webinar Technology for Global Rabies Education

Background: Rabies is a fatal yet preventable disease. Any mammal is susceptible to infection. Bites from unvaccinated dogs are the leading cause of human rabies deaths. Globally, more than 3.3 billion people live at risk of exposure to canine rabies and nearly 200 people die from rabies every day. Rabies is the deadliest disease known to man. Once clinical signs of rabies appear, the disease is invariably fatal. Hence, prevention through traditional and novel approaches to health education is paramount. The use of open source technology has become increasingly important for public health promotion. Internet based applications such as web seminars, or webinars, provide health educators with a new tool to disseminate their messages to a broader audience.

Program background: Since 2007, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have partnered on global rabies education efforts and have recently experimented with webinar technology as a tool to reach new audiences, particularly those most at risk, yet least informed. In observance of World Rabies Day, held annually on September 28th, GARC and CDC coordinated webinars across five continents and numerous time zones, educating thousands of people in 83 countries.

Evaluation Methods and Results: In order to better understand the webinars’ impact and overall value as an educational tool, the coordinating team conducted a formative evaluation using a mixed method approach of dichotomous, multiple-choice, rating scale and open text questions. The survey consisted of 19 questions and was generated using SurveyMonkey Pro^® and emailed to webinar participants for feedback. A total of 136 completed surveys were returned by veterinarians, physicians, nurses, students, professors, scientists, educators, environmental health specialists, animal control staff and wildlife officers. 97% (n=129) rated the webinars as informative or useful. 27 (21%) respondents indicated experiencing technical issues. An overwhelming 98% of respondents said that they would attend a future webinar and 92 respondents suggested topics for future webinars.    

Conclusions: Webinars enable public health professionals to communicate their prevention messages to a broad audience, are cost effective and ultimately allow public health organizations to do more with less in an environmentally conscious manner. More importantly, webinars allow those persons historically unable to attend professional conferences to interact with subject matter experts and gain the knowledge necessary to formulate new perceptions and attitudes towards uptake of healthy behaviors.  Future rabies webinars will address the fundamentals of rabies prevention that are currently lacking in rabies endemic countries including training on laboratory and field-based diagnostic techniques as well as surveillance methods, epidemiology and case reporting; all of which can be conducted in real time at low or no cost.

Implications for research and/or practice: Public health practitioners conducting global webinars need to be cognizant of differences in time zones and languages and provide adequate connection instructions for accessing the webinars. Demonstration webinars should be offered ahead of time to allow potential participants, and especially presenters, to gain familiarity with the webinar platform.