title: Regional collaboration in public health training and research among countries of South Eastern Europe.
abstract: It is argued that each country of South Eastern Europe should have its own school of public health. However, a basic prerequisite of modern public health training is the comprehensiveness of the programme and a worldview approach. Most of the countries of South Eastern Europe face the same difficulties to adapt their inherited communist structures of public health training to Western standards. A regional collaboration would facilitate the process of establishing schools of public health in all countries of the region and support the training of public health professionals at all levels.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  South East Europe includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Moldavia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia. Public health institutions in South East Europe face similar difficulties to adapt their inherited teaching structures to Western standards. Public health institutions in South East Europe should make a joint effort towards establishing regional training programmes. A regional approach in public health training would enable an efficient use of resources in countries of South East Europe.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Tirana University, Albania. gburazeri@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Genc
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Burazeri
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Laaser
authors.forename: Vesna
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Bjegovic
authors.forename: Lidia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Georgieva
mesh_terms: D003148:Communism; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005061:Europe, Eastern; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D011634:Public Health / Q000193:education* / Q000592:standards; D012040:Regional Health Planning; D012581:Schools, Public Health / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D013663:Teaching / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D019366:Western World