Scientific capacity-building

Nyanja Health Research Institute’s capacity-building team comprises an international network of experienced researchers who are passionate about building the research dissemination skills of junior and mid-level researchers across Africa.

We implement an intentional and coordinated effort to raise awareness of health research findings locally, nationally, and internationally, and to help bridge the traditional silos between health research and health programs at operational levels.  We do this through teaching and mentoring junior- and mid-level research scientists to write scientific manuscripts and presentations, and guide them through the process of tailoring their message to local, national and international stakeholders.

Kenya Medical Research Institute

We have mentored young scientists from KEMRI’s Centre for Global Health Research since 2018 in scientific writing, protocol development, and the art of scientific presentations. They now have several publications in reputable peer-reviewed journals, and presentations at global conferences such as the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH) and the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI)

University of Washington

We are working with the University of Washington’s Enterics for Global Health (EFGH) Shigella Surveillance study to support capacity-building for data dissemination at 7 country sites: The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Peru. Work includes the standardisation of templates for policy briefs, scientific presentations and posters, and published manuscripts, and a sixteen month training course on manuscript development will start in late 2023.

Excess Mortality in COVID-19 project

Nyanja is collaborating with the Wits School of Public Health in working with over a dozen Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites (HDSS) across Africa and South Asia to clean and analyse population-based data to assess changes in mortality before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Wits team provides the data management and analysis support while Nyanja brings training and mentoring in manuscript development and other data dissemination methods. We aim to publish a journal supplement before the end of 2023 describing COVID-19 mortality in each research site.

Emory University

Nyanja worked with the CHAMPS Project, which conducts <5 mortality surveillance in 10 countries in Africa and South Asia, to develop standardised site publication tools and increase site capacity for research publications and data dissemination to in-country stakeholders.