Friday Newsletter
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Dear Centre Leaders,
We hope you have had a good week.
We have the following items for your attention:
  • Determining the representativeness of HDSS
  • Abdramane Soura promoted to Associate Professor
  • Life-saving Instruction For Emergencies secures seed funding
  • Safe distance between water wells and pit latrines could reduce waterborne diseases
1. Determining the representativeness of HDSS
A paper titled “A probabilistic predictive Bayesian approach for determining the representativeness of health and demographic surveillance networks” proposes  this interpretation of the concept of probability to assess the representativeness of the INDEPTH HDSS network in sub-Saharan Africa as an alternative to previous approaches.  It has been published in the Spatial Statistics journal.. Read more 
2.  Abdramane Soura promoted to Associate Professor
The Centre Leader for Ouagadougou HDSS, Burkina Faso, Abdramane B. Soura has been promoted to the rank of an Associate Professor. 

This was after an assessment made in July by the African Council for Higher Education, which is the Career evaluation instance of university teachers in most French-speaking African countries.

Prof Soura acknowledged INDEPTH’s role in his promotion saying: “This was possible thanks to my publications, some of which were made in the framework of INDEPTH working groups. Read more
News from our member centres
1.  Life-saving Instruction For Emergencies secures seed funding
Life-saving Instruction For Emergencies (LIFE), a mobile gaming app designed to provide vital emergency care training to remote communities in sub-Saharan Africa, emerged among 12 of the world’s most promising ideas to save lives at birth in developing countries. Out of 650 applicants, the 12 nominees secured millions in new funding to develop and refine their innovations.

The concept of the mobile phone application was developed by researchers from the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in collaboration with a team of leading academics from the University of Oxford.
The Kenya Medical Research Institute/ Wellcome Trust (Kilifi HDSS) is an INDEPTH member centre in Kenya. Read more
2. Safe distance between water wells and pit latrines could reduce waterborne diseases
The contamination of groundwater from shallow tubewells caused by adjacent pit latrines in Bangladesh varies according to the water and soil conditions in different areas, finds an icddr,b study.

Pit latrines are commonly used toilets in rural and sub-urban Bangladesh and these often contaminate groundwater sources when the safe distance between a water point such as shallow tubewells and pit latrine is not adequately maintained.

The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) is an INDEPTH member centre in Bangladesh. Read more 
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