The Global Public Health program at DFPM has a worldwide outreach, regularly sending learners to distant countries to learn the practice of research in the field as well as receive the benefit of local health practitioners. In Global Public Health’s most recent Grand Rounds, three of these learners shared their research.
The evening was kicked off by Rachel Fagergren and Emma Gee, second-year PharmD students, who presented their findings on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding COVID-19 in peri-urban communities in Ghana, West Africa. The two researchers traveled to Ghana in the summer of 2022, well into the COVID-19 pandemic and following a period when the nation experienced thousands of COVID-19 related deaths and several health-emergency measures such as school and border closures. The pair surveyed peri-urban Ghanaians on their understanding and prevention practices regarding COVID-19, using surveys in English and Twi, the local language. They found that those surveyed had a basic understanding of COVID-19 and the risk of transmission, but that the knowledge they had did not always translate to personal prevention practices.
The majority of those surveyed self-reported receiving at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Additionally, they found that 81.3% were positive for long-term antibodies against COVID-19.
The student researchers credit local and international support for the success of their efforts. “We were able to work with some incredible people, both from the U and from Ghana,” said Fagergren. “The [Ghanaian] community health workers were instrumental to making this all happen. In addition to providing the translation to Twi, they provided great context and enabled us to be welcomed into these communities to gather this data.” With the feedback they received from participants in the Grand Rounds, Fagergren and Gee plan to present their findings at the Consortium of Universities for Global Health conference in April.
The Grand Rounds concluded with Merri Luczak, a second-year medical student, who joined a group of seven learners from the program to visit villages of Langza, Demul, and Pangmo in the Spiti Valley India. The focus of Luczak’s research was period poverty, defined as the “lack of access to menstrual products, hygiene facilities, waste management, and education.” In many rural areas in the Himalayas, as well as across the world, people with periods lack resources and education to help maintain healthy menstruation practices, a lack with contributes to a number of poor health outcomes. Luczak and her team tracked knowledge and attitudes about menstruation in the villages, creating an important set of data for accessing the needs of the area in education and menstruation hygiene resources. They also surveyed respondents the barriers to accessing existing resources, including poverty, embarrassment, and cultural restrictions.
“I think there are a lot of rural towns in this area that could benefit from learning about and seeing what can be done to improve their menstrual hygiene management,” said Luczak. “There is a dire need for community-based participatory intervention to address the challenges we identified.” In addition to this Grand Rounds, Luczakplans to present her findings at DFPM’s fifth annual Education, Research, and Community Engagement Summit in April.
The Division of Public Health’s Global Public Health Learning Abroad Program plans yearly trips to Ghana, India, and Peru for cohorts of healthcare and public health learners. To learn more about the program, visit the Learning Abroad website.