Burden of Disease Research Unit
Training
The Burden of Disease
Research Unit has been promoting the development of quantitative analytical
skills, and facilitates and provides training in demography, epidemiology,
burden of disease methodology and health informatics. This has been achieved
through contributions to various academic programmes at several universities.
In addition, specialised workshops have been organised by the unit:
- A two week workshop
was held in Cape Town in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine on the analysis of the Demographic and Health Survey
data set in January 2001. The workshop assisted post-graduate students and
other researchers to make use of the data set for secondary analysis. Several
reports and articles will result from this initiative.
- The MRC also hosted
the 8th Annual Workshop on Evidence for Health Policy run by the World Health
Organisation and Harvard University in October 2002. The courses in the
workshop provided detailed instruction and practical experience in measuring
burden of disease, undertaking analyses of the cost effectiveness of health
interventions and assessing the performance of health systems. They emphasized
both conceptual and applied skills, including the use of specialized computer
software. This was the first time that the workshop has been held in Africa,
making international training more accessible to people from this continent.
- The Burden of Disease
Research Unit in collaboration with the Equity project organised a CSPro
training workshop in December 2002. The main objective was the transfer
and development of skills in the manipulation of the computer data-capturing
and analysis software, CSPro, designed for household surveys. Structured
around the Eastern Cape PHC Household Survey, the workshop targeted people
in government.
- The Burden of Disease
Research Unit, in collaboration with the Research Development Directorate
facilitated a Project Planning and Evaluation Workshop for MRC research
trainees from 4-6 June 2003 in Cape Town. The main objectives of the workshop
were to encourage young research scientists to consider and understand the
value of planning and evaluation, strengthen their project planning and
evaluation skills, and apply these skills to every day work.
- Zambia has planned
to undertake a burden of disease study from 2003. However, before embarking
on this exercise they found it was important to get some advise/input from
countries that have already conducted this kind of study to share experiences.
The Burden of Disease Research Unit organised a two day workshop in burden
of disease methodology. Members of the unit presented methods and initial
estimates from South Africa's first National Burden of Disease Study.
|
