Friday Newsletter
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Dear Centre Leaders,
In today's newsletter:
  • African NCD data group meets in Nairobi
  • Take your ideas even further
  • DELTAS Africa call reminder
  • Joint WHO/TDR -INDEPTH planning workshop held in Hanoi
  • Perceptions of childhood undernutrition (Kenyan coast)
1. African NCD data group meets in Nairobi
ANDLA workshop participants.
A four day inaugural workshop of the African Non-Communicable Disease Longitudinal Data Alliance (ANDLA) is underway in Nairobi, Kenya, hosted by the African Population Health Research Centre and Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit.

The alliance has been recently funded by a UK Medical Research Council Global Challenges Research Fund award to collate longitudinal data from six African partners to conduct pooled and comparative analyses on NCDs. Initial planned analyses include risk of cardiovascular mortality associated with different risk factors and HIV-associated cancer mortality. Read more
 
2. Take your ideas even further
An exciting multi-language science communication competition for Masters' and PhD students in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. They can participate by making video talk about their MSc or PhD project in a simple and accessible way. Read more: Read more
3.  DELTAS Africa call reminder
This is a reminder that the deadline for the DELTAS Africa Call for DELTAS Africa - Sub-Saharan Africa Consortium for Advanced Biostatistics (SSACAB) MSc fellowships in Biostatistics for 2017 Academic Year that we shared earlier is 31ST JULY 2017.
See details : Attachment 1
                     Attachment 2
News from Centres
1. FilaBavi and Dodalab HDSSs:
Joint WHO/TDR -INDEPTH planning workshop held in Hanoi
The picture shows participants of Joint INDEPTH-WHO/TDR planning workshop on Health Systems Implementation Research (IR) in Hanoi, Vietnam. In view of extending capacity on implementation research across INDEPTH members, a training workshop that was initially scheduled for December 2016, was held in Hanoi from March 7-9 and hosted by Filabavi HDSS.  Funded by WHO/TDR, the meeting was attended by the following member HDSSs (that had shown commitment and provided the relevant details): Kersa and Kilite Awlaelo (Ethiopia); Kombewa (Kenya), Vadu (India) and the hosts FilaBavi and Dodalab. This planning meeting provided the opportunity for colleagues from select INDEPTH member centres, TDR and INDEPTH to discuss the IR process and relevant tools available, review key research questions and the specific areas identified by participating centres and select a broad (or all-inclusive) programme implementation problem and develop an application for IR.
 
2. Kilifi HDSS:
Perceptions of childhood undernutrition among rural households on the Kenyan coast
A street scene in Kilifi.
A study in Kilifi County on the Kenyan Coast established that perceptions of child nutrition and illness and gendered roles within households influence treatment action, and engagement with nutrition interventions, and recommended that community-based nutrition interventions must recognise these complex realities.

Nutrition plays an important role in child survival and development. Treatment action in the management of child health and nutrition is influenced by perceptions of illness, and gender plays an important role. However, little is known about if and how moderate undernutrition is recognised among lay populations, or how local social norms and intra-household dynamics affect decisions to seek biomedical assistance for nutritional concerns. In this paper "Perceptions of childhood undernutrition among rural households on the Kenyan coast – a qualitative study" researchers describe how childhood nutritional problems are recognised and understood within rural households. They demonstrate how context influences local constructs of ‘normal’, and suggest the centrality of gender in the management of child health and nutrition in our research context. Read more
Policy Engagement and Communications