Open-Access Learning as a Pathway to Equity During Health Emergencies

Real-time learning in health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic is a critical mechanism to provide frontline health workers, responders, decision-makers and the public with equitable access to the latest knowledge to save lives, reduce disease transmission and protect the vulnerable. The World Health Organization (WHO) established the OpenWHO.org learning platform to meet this need. Courses are free, self-paced, accessible in low-bandwidth and offline formats, and available in national and local languages. Enrolment data from OpenWHO’s introductory COVID-19 course, which has more than 1 million enrolments across 45 language versions, were examined according to language and geographical reach to assess how multilingual availability contributes to equity in learning. The analysis found that most language versions had uptake clustered in key countries where native speakers are concentrated, while use of some translations was more broadly dispersed. In nearly three-fourths of the available language versions of the course, more than one-third of enrolments were found in the top country of use. The findings suggest that courses available in the United Nations languages, as well as national and local languages, served as entryways for learners who may not have otherwise been able to participate. A production policy that prioritizes translation of open online courses into diverse languages contributes to equity in access to public health knowledge at the global and country levels during health emergencies.