Rural Public Health & Health Transition Research Unit
Director:
Prof Stephen Tollman
E-mail: Stephen.Tollman@wits.ac.za
MRC/WITS Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt)
Brief Introduction
The Agincourt Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance System (HSDSS) is the research foundation of the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt). Work of the Unit serves to strengthen and extend a high-functioning health and socio-demographic surveillance system - including annual census, vital events and socio-economic updates. This serves as the scientific foundation for a programme of advanced research and intervention studies.
Evolution of the Agincourt HSDSS
Work in Agincourt passed through several stages following a baseline census in 1992:
- Decentralised health systems development (1993-1997) providing a prototype for national
policy in response to limited experience delivering rural services
- Reorientation to a university-linked health and population research initiative (1998-2002)
as serious weaknesses in the rural evidence base became apparent
- Establishing a field-based research and training programme linked with the Witwatersrand
University (2003 onwards) that is central to an interdisciplinary university initiative termed ‘Population, Health and Society’.
The Agincourt Study Site
The Agincourt sub-district, measuring some 420 km² and extended in 2007 to cover 84,853 people living in 14,382 households and 26 villages, lies in South Africa’s semi-arid rural north-east (figure 1). Part of the Bushbuckridge ‘poverty node’, it has long been a labour sending area with limited employment opportunities despite a population density above 200 persons per km². Located only 40km west of the Mozambican border, the area can be regarded as a cross-border region of rural southern Africa - indeed former Mozambicans make up about a third of the Agincourt population.
 
Figure 1: Southern Africa showing Agincourt study site; Agincourt study site detail, 2009.
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