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The Disease Intervention Training Centers (DITC) are a critical part of training a strong public health workforce. The purpose of the DITCs is to strengthen the capacity of local and state health departments to conduct STD/HIV, COVID-19 and intervention services for other communicable diseases. This national training center network will support workforce capacity building for a critical classification of public health staff, Disease Intervention Specialists (DIS), as well as COVID-19 Case Investigators (CI) and Contact Tracers (CT). DIS/CI/CT are core personnel in many local and state health departments who conduct investigation of communicable diseases and a number of tasks related to preventing the spread of transmission of sexually transmitted disease (STD), HIV and other communicable diseases. Additionally these staff are skilled in addressing new communicable disease threats and can be redirected quickly to intervene. These tasks include but are not limited to: client-centered interviews; collection of enhanced surveillance and community assessment data; partner services, including contact tracing; field investigation and other field-based activities, including specimen collection, directly observed therapy; community outreach; collaboration with medical providers and navigation of health care systems to ensure patient evaluation, treatment, linkage to care and other supportive services; and mobilization for outbreak investigation and emergency response. Recent assessments completed for the National Disease Intervention Specialist (DIS) Certification Project, revealed a need for standardization of DIS training to ensure comprehensive skills sets for this classification nationwide, and enhancement of current DIS training platforms to better support the core functions of the classification. Standardized training for DIS nationwide is essential for consistency and quality of disease intervention practice, as well as ensuring transference of uniform skills for cross-program and cross-jurisdictional response. State and local health departments have also identified other staff classifications (e.g., public health nurses, patient navigators, linkage to care specialists), conducting STD, HIV and other communicable disease intervention work, for whom the same practice standards and training are relevant.

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