If you've landed here than you must have at least a somewhat passing interest in my whereabouts. This is my first post and I'm excited to be writing it. I think the is somewhat overdue, but it's better to start late than to never start at all. I intend to write this the same way that I speak, and that comes with a warning. If you've never had a conversation with me that you enjoyed, then you should probably turn back now.
For those of you who don't know, I'm spending my summer in Ghana working on a project with the Institute for International Programs (IIP) at Johns Hopkins. I have no idea exactly how much about my experience people would like to hear, so I'm just going to share what comes to my mind. If you have any specific questions or interests that you'd like me to address, let me know. For now, let's begin with a brief introduction to what I'm doing here. In fact, what I'm doing here might be jumping into the deep end before learning how to swim. First, let's look at what the overall program is doing. (It'll be more interesting anyway, I can guarantee.)
One of the key indicators for the health status of a country is the under-five mortality rate, which is measured by the number of deaths among children under the age of five per 1,000 live births. While it's called a "rate," it's more often explained as the probability of a child dying before his or her fifth birthday. Not such an uplifting idea. Under-five mortality is generally measured every 3-5 years through national household surveys, the most well known of which are the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS).
The problem with measuring under-five mortality at such large intervals is that it becomes hard to use this indicator to evaluate the performance of a health program. Imagine a program targeting improvements in child health that runs from 2002-2003 but the only available on under-five mortality come from surveys for 2000 and 2005. Many changes could have occurred either before or after the program was implemented, making it particularly difficult to attribute any change in under-five mortality over the 2000-2005 period to this specific program. That's where IIP comes in.
Our program is exploring innovative methods in collecting data on under-five mortality, with the specific goal of producing accurate estimates with greater frequency than is currently the case. Ghana is just one of several countries participating in this program, which is called Real-Time Results Tracking (RRT). In Ghana, we are using community-based volunteers (CBVs) to collect information on vital events (births and deaths) within their communities on a monthly basis. They use a standard template that we have designed and submit these forms to district supervisors at the end of each month. Our goal is to explore how the under-five mortality rates from this method compare with those produced by the gold standard methods currently in use (i.e. household surveys). To most precisely gauge this, we are also conducting a complete household survey at baseline and endline for all communities involved in the project. So that's probably more than you wanted to know about what's going on here. There are interesting things to say about my role in things here, but I'll save those for another post.
To those of you making it this far, thanks for reading. I've included a few photos taken around the office and surrounding area. The first is of the Nuguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research sign in front of the main building. (Is this really called a sign? I'm sure there's a better word but it's escaping me right now.) The second is a view of the Prince Al-Waleed Clinical Reserach Center, where my office is located. The final picture is of the courtyard of the same building. It's the rainy season here, which helps explain why everything is so green.
Alright, that's all for now. Take care and see you guys soon.
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