scholarly journals Developing a Curriculum for Information and Communications Technology Use in Global Health Research and Training: A Qualitative Study Among Chinese Health Sciences Graduate Students

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. e11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenyu Ma ◽  
Li Yang ◽  
Lan Yang ◽  
Kaiyong Huang ◽  
Hongping Yu ◽  
...  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiyong Huang ◽  
Abu S. Abdullah ◽  
Zhenyu Ma ◽  
Dilshat S. Urmi ◽  
Huimin He ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Information and communications technology (ICT) has been suggested as an important tool for improving global health education and building research capacity in developing countries. However, the existing curricula do not have adequate emphasis on global health research and training. This study was carried out to examine health sciences postgraduates’ attitudes and practices regarding curriculum for ICT use in global health research and training in China. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among health sciences postgraduates from six universities in southern China, during December 2016 to March 2017. A self-administered online questionnaire was used to collect data through an online survey platform. Data were analyzed using SPSS for Windows 13.0. Results A total of 1065 participants successfully completed the questionnaires. More than 90% of the students have not had any training about ICT, three quarters have not taken an online course, and 31% of the students do not use ICT in their current research. More than 65% thought that, in an ICT research training curriculum, it was important to learn: ICT utilization related knowledge, ICT research methods/resources, knowledge of databases, ways of data use and acquisition, and informatics search methods (ICT users compared to non-users were more likely to agree to these learning components (all p <  0.05)). Many of the respondents used or planned to use mobile phones (80%), Internet (59%), use computer and WeChat (> 40%), and QQ (a popular chat tool in China) (30%) as ICT tools in research activities. ICT users compared to non-users were more likely to consider using ICT and/or biomedical informatics methods in decision-support or support for information seeking, healthcare delivering, academic research, data gathering, and facilitating collaboration (all p <  0.05). Conclusions The findings of this study showed that ICT utilization was very important to health sciences postgraduates for their research activities in China, but they lacked ICT-related training. The results suggested the need for specialized curriculum related to ICT use in global health research for health sciences postgraduates in China.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Pratt

AbstractTo promote social justice and equity, global health research should meaningfully engage communities throughout projects: from setting agendas onwards. But communities, especially those that are considered disadvantaged or marginalised, rarely have a say in the priorities of the research projects that aim to help them. So far, there remains limited ethical guidance and resources on how to share power with communities in health research priority-setting. This paper presents an “ethical toolkit” for academic researchers and their community partners to use to design priority-setting processes that meaningfully include the communities impacted by their projects. An empirical reflective equilibrium approach was employed to develop the toolkit. Conceptual work articulated ethical considerations related to sharing power in g0l0o0bal health research priority-setting, developed guidance on how to address them, and created an initial version of the toolkit. Empirical work (51 in-depth interviews, 1 focus group, 2 case studies in India and the Philippines) conducted in 2018 and 2019 then tested those findings against information from global health research practice. The final ethical toolkit is a reflective project planning aid. It consists of 4 worksheets (Worksheet 1- Selecting Partners; Worksheet 2- Deciding to Partner; Worksheet 3- Deciding to Engage with the Wider Community; Worksheet 4- Designing Priority-setting) and a Companion Document detailing how to use them. Reflecting on and discussing the questions in Worksheets 1 to 4 before priority-setting will help deliver priority-setting processes that share power with communities and projects with research topics and questions that more accurately reflect their healthcare and system needs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. e003236
Author(s):  
Sandra Alba ◽  
Kristien Verdonck ◽  
Annick Lenglet ◽  
Susan F Rumisha ◽  
Martijn Wienia ◽  
...  

BackgroundResearch integrity and research fairness have gained considerable momentum in the past decade and have direct implications for global health epidemiology. Research integrity and research fairness principles should be equally nurtured to produce high-quality impactful research—but bridging the two can lead to practical and ethical dilemmas. In order to provide practical guidance to researchers and epidemiologist, we set out to develop good epidemiological practice guidelines specifically for global health epidemiology, targeted at stakeholders involved in the commissioning, conduct, appraisal and publication of global health research.MethodsWe developed preliminary guidelines based on targeted online searches on existing best practices for epidemiological studies and sought to align these with key elements of global health research and research fairness. We validated these guidelines through a Delphi consultation study, to reach a consensus among a wide representation of stakeholders.ResultsA total of 45 experts provided input on the first round of e-Delphi consultation and 40 in the second. Respondents covered a range of organisations (including for example academia, ministries, NGOs, research funders, technical agencies) involved in epidemiological studies from countries around the world (Europe: 19; Africa: 10; North America: 7; Asia: 5; South-America: 3 Australia: 1). A selection of eight experts were invited for a face-to-face meeting. The final guidelines consist of a set of 6 standards and 42 accompanying criteria including study preparation, protocol development, data collection, data management, data analysis, dissemination and communication.ConclusionWhile guidelines will not by themselves guard global health from questionable and unfair research practices, they are certainly part of a concerted effort to ensure not only mutual accountability between individual researchers, their institutions and their funders but most importantly their joint accountability towards the communities they study and society at large.


The Lancet ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 397 (10280) ◽  
pp. 1168-1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqui Thornton

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. e001853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethany L Hedt-Gauthier ◽  
Herve Momo Jeufack ◽  
Nicholas H Neufeld ◽  
Atalay Alem ◽  
Sara Sauer ◽  
...  

BackgroundCollaborations are often a cornerstone of global health research. Power dynamics can shape if and how local researchers are included in manuscripts. This article investigates how international collaborations affect the representation of local authors, overall and in first and last author positions, in African health research.MethodsWe extracted papers on ‘health’ in sub-Saharan Africa indexed in PubMed and published between 2014 and 2016. The author’s affiliation was used to classify the individual as from the country of the paper’s focus, from another African country, from Europe, from the USA/Canada or from another locale. Authors classified as from the USA/Canada were further subclassified if the author was from a top US university. In primary analyses, individuals with multiple affiliations were presumed to be from a high-income country if they contained any affiliation from a high-income country. In sensitivity analyses, these individuals were presumed to be from an African country if they contained any affiliation an African country. Differences in paper characteristics and representation of local coauthors are compared by collaborative type using χ² tests.ResultsOf the 7100 articles identified, 68.3% included collaborators from the USA, Canada, Europe and/or another African country. 54.0% of all 43 429 authors and 52.9% of 7100 first authors were from the country of the paper’s focus. Representation dropped if any collaborators were from USA, Canada or Europe with the lowest representation for collaborators from top US universities—for these papers, 41.3% of all authors and 23.0% of first authors were from country of paper’s focus. Local representation was highest with collaborators from another African country. 13.5% of all papers had no local coauthors.DiscussionIndividuals, institutions and funders from high-income countries should challenge persistent power differentials in global health research. South-South collaborations can help African researchers expand technical expertise while maintaining presence on the resulting research.


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