1. INDEPTH Staff Retreat - 2014
Staff of INDEPTH Network are holding their annual retreat which is taking place from December 18 – 20, 2014, at the Royal Senchi Hotel near Akosombo in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

The retreat is an important event on the calendar of the Secretariat where staff review the year’s activities and discuss among others the work plan and budget for the coming year.

During the three-day programme, managers of the various section together with their team presented their detailed activities for 2014 while indicating their achievements, challenges as well as the work plan for 2015.

The Finance Section gave financial position of the Network as of December 2014, what is expected for 2015 and presented the budgetary plan for the coming year.

There was a session to discuss the meetings of the INDEPTH Board and the INDEPTH Scientific Advisory Committee which will take place in Dubai in 2015. Of utmost importance also were deliberations on the AGM/ISC 2015 scheduled to take place in November in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

INDEPTH Staff took time to review the health insurance and welfare policies. The Network’s Solicitor, Dr Kofi Baku led the team to review and amend the 2010 Administrative Manual of the Secretariat.

The Executive Director of INDEPTH Network, Prof Osman Sankoh, in his remarks expressed his appreciation to staff for their collective contribution to the success of the Network.

He said the coming year should see staff with renewed vigour, understanding and determination to work together to move the Network to greater heights.

“Without each and every one of you, we couldn’t have achieved what we did in 2014. We thank our centre leaders and their various teams, the Board, the SAC, our funders, working group and project leaders and all INDEPTH stakeholders for their various contributions,” concluded the INDEPTH ED.

2. Papers published in 2014
As we approach the end of the year, we want to collate our achievements with regard to publications for the year 2014. Please forward to the Secretariat a complete list of papers published in peer reviewed journals which have used data from your HDSS. We will add this information to the Network's publications database as we have done in previous years.

For your publications in 2013, please see the list on the INDEPTH website by clicking on the following link:
http://www.indepth-network.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1837

The list is also printed in our Annual Report 2013
http://www.indepth-network.org/Annual%20reports/indepth_annualreport_2013.pdf

Please send your publications to Peter: peter.asiedu@indepth-network.org

3. Meet our graduates from the INDEPTH-funded MSc Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Today, we bring to you, a letter of appreciation from Patricia Gweliwo of the Navrongo Health Research Centre, Ghana. She completed her course in July this year. This series of short profiles is to introduce the more than 30 HDSS scientists who have been funded by INDEPTH to pursue the MSc in Population-based Field Epidemiology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Scholarships for this programme have been graciously provided by Sida, Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation.

More information on the INDEPTH Scientific Development and Leadership Programme can be obtained by clicking on the following link: Leadership Programme.

“I am Patricia Gweliwo from the Navrongo Health Research Centre. Before I enrolled for the MSc Population based field Epidemiology programme, I was a research assistant for the Malaria in Pregnancy trial. Taking part in the programme was a dream come true.

I am most grateful to INDEPTH for making it possible for me to enrich my skills and expertise in a world class institution like the University of the Witwatersrand. The Navrongo Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) is packed with useful data that need to be utilised to affect policy and improve the lives of the people in the area, Ghana and the world at large.

The Navrongo Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) is packed with useful data that need to be utilised to affect policy and improve the lives of the people in the area, Ghana and the world at large.

During the MSc programme, important epidemiological areas such as study designs, measures of association, validity of research methods and the evaluation of scientific papers were undertaken. Other major courses such as biostatistics, demography; research ethics, protocol development and relational data bases were part of the study package.

These courses have provided me with the expertise to conduct cutting edge research in my HDSS. Before I got enrolled in this course, I had challenges in my research career but in the end acquired valuable research skills. Nothing excites me more than my current ability to analyse data with the STATA software package.

I worked on the effect of household socio-economic factors on household formation and dissolution in a high HIV prevalence area for my dissertation. I found out that, household socio-economic factors were associated with household formation and dissolution.

Many thanks to Professor Tobias Chirwa of the University of the Witwatersrand and Dr. Makandwe Nyirenda of the Africa Centre for Population and Health for the mentorship”. .

Thank you.
Have a restful weekend!

Becky Kwei