Patricia Gweliwo

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