Friday Newsletter
View this email in your browser
Dear Centre Leaders,
We hope you have had a good week.
We have the following items for your attention:
  • Linking health and environment data 
  • Plan for Implementation Research workshop
  • Meeting to discuss Implementation Research workshop
  • The Evolving Demographic and Health Transition in Four Low-and Middle-Income Countries: Evidence from four sites in the INDEPTH Network
  • icddr,b scientist wins 2016 Charles C. Shepard Science Award 
  • New paper from Agincourt
  • Co-design workshop held in Nairobi
  • Validation of brief CES-D Scale for measuring depression and associated predictors among adolescents in Vietnam
  • Dabat HDSS shares activity report
1. Linking health and environment data
Group photograph of participants.
The Executive Director of the INDEPTH Network, Prof Osman Sankoh, was part of the Advancing Planetary Health meeting held in Bellagio, Italy, from 4 – 8 July 2016.

The aim of the meeting was to shape the development of a programme of activities on health within Future Earth Health Knowledge-Action Network (KAN). The primary purpose of KAN is to facilitate research that will inform solutions to improving health under global environmental change.

The KAN, to be launched by the end of the year, is a mechanism for global and open engagement and coordination across stakeholders from within and outside of the direct health community, and wide translation of research findings into policy and practice outcomes.  Read more
2. Plan for Implementation Research workshop
INDEPTH’s Capacity Strengthening & Training Manager, Dr. Martin Bangha (right) paid a working visit to the Dodowa Health Research Centre, Ghana, where he held discussions with the Director and Centre Leader, Dr. Margaret Gyapong (left). 

The discussions centered on making concrete plans for an INDEPTH-WHO/TDR partnership for a training workshop on Implementation Research (IR). 

This included preparatory activities, timing, potential participants, criteria for selection and what was expected of the participating centres.
3.  The Evolving Demographic and Health Transition in Four Low-and Middle-Income Countries: Evidence from four sites in the INDEPTH Network
This paper contributes evidence documenting the continued decline in all-cause mortality and changes in the cause of death distribution over time in four developing country populations in Africa and Asia. It presents present levels and trends in age-specific mortality (all-cause and cause-specific) from four demographic surveillance sites: Agincourt (South Africa), Navrongo (Ghana) in Africa; Filabavi (Vietnam), Matlab (Bangladesh) in Asia. It was published in PLOS One.  Read more
News from our member centres
1.  icddr,b scientist wins 2016 Charles C. Shepard Science Award 
Proud winner - Dr. K. Zaman
icddrb’s Dr K Zaman and his research colleagues have won the prestigious 2016 Charles C. Shepard Science Award for an article published on polio research in the Lancet Infectious Diseases. It was awarded in the category ‘Prevention and Control’. 

Dr K Zaman, a senior scientist and epidemiologist with icddrb’s Infectious Disease Division, led the study in collaboration with scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  

The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) is an INDEPTH member centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Read more
2.  New paper from Agincourt
“Health care utilization and outpatient, out-of-pocket costs for active convulsive epilepsy in rural northeastern South Africa: a cross-sectional Survey” is the title of a new paper from Agincourt which has been published in BioMed Central.

The paper notes that “rural South Africans with epilepsy consult with both biomedical caregivers and traditional healers for both epilepsy and non-epilepsy care. Traditional healers were the most expensive mode of care, though utilized less often. While higher out-of-pocket costs were incurred at hospital visits, more people with ACE visited hospitals than clinics for epilepsy care. Promoting increased use and effective care at clinics and reducing travel and waiting times could substantially reduce the out-of-pocket costs of outpatient epilepsy care.”
Agincourt HDSS is an INDEPTH member centre in South Africa.
  Read more
3.    Co-design workshop held in Nairobi
Some participants at the workshop.
An interactive and exciting workshop on designing hospital based applications has been held at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme offices in Nairobi. The co-design workshop was fun, interactive and aimed at equipping people with skills to design mobile application prototypes for use in health facilities.

The Kilifi HDSS (Kenya Medical Research Institute/ Wellcome Trust) is an INDEPTH member centre in Kenya. Read more
4. Validation of brief CES-D Scale for measuring depression and associated predictors among adolescents in Vietnam
The aims of this paper – “Validation of a Brief CES-D Scale for Measuring Depression and Its Associated Predictors among Adolescents in Chi Linh, Hai Duong, Vietnam” published in AIMS Press were to confirm the validity and reliability of a brief CES-D measure for depression and identify the associated factors with the depression among adolescents and youth in Chi Linh, Hai Duong province, Vietnam.

The paper concluded that depression scale should be widely applied for screening the depression symptoms of adolescents and youth population. The necessary strategies should be implemented to improve the adolescent and young population’s depression status.

Chililab HDSS is an INDEPTH member centre in Vietnam. Read more
5. Dabat HDSS shares activity report
Participants during community day meeting.
Dabat HDSS has held a community day meeting to share its key findings using local language; completed a reconciliation process between the surveillance data and re-census data and was also involved in an Ethiopian based HDSS site annual joint data analysis.

Dabat HDSS is an INDEPTH member centre in Ethiopia. Read more
Policy Engagement and Communications