Nineteen faculty members of India’s field epidemiologists training programme (FETP) sharpened their data analysis skills at an immersive workshop in New Delhi from 18–22 August 2025, jointly organized by WHO India and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), with support from the Pandemic Fund.
Data analytics is integral for planning and implementing public health programmes and response. The training focused on ‘R’, a free programming language widely used in public health for statistical analysis, visualization, and reporting. Over five days, six facilitators from SAFETYNET India guided FETP faculty through practical exercises in importing, cleaning, manipulating, and visualizing surveillance and outbreak data.
NCDC Director Prof (Dr) Ranjan Das emphasized the importance of analyzing surveillance data for effective public health action. Additional Director Dr Avdhesh Kumar highlighted the need for participants to apply their new skills in daily work, while Dr Ramesh Chandra formally concluded the workshop.
The participants—drawn from NCDC, WHO India, and leading public health institutes including National Institute of Public Health Training and Research, Mumbai, and All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata — appreciated the interactive sessions, real-time mentoring, and hands-on activities that helped strengthen their command of R. Feedback-driven improvements, teamwork, and engaging teaching techniques ensured high knowledge retention.
Interactive sessions, mentorship, a non-judgmental and supportive environment, active participation, cross-learnings and teamwork helped improved the participant’s skills in every aspect of data analysis using R (Figure 1).
This workshop marks a step forward in building India’s capacity for data-driven public health responses.