We increasingly need the social and behavioural sciences to help us achieve the goals outlined in the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) roadmap and particularly ‘the last miles’ of NTD elimination and control.
Join us as we interview guests from across the NTD community, hearing their stories, and how the work they are doing contributes to the last miles of NTD elimination and control.
Episodes
Economic terms such as effectiveness and efficiency are often used when evaluating programs, but what do these terms really mean? Tune in to hear Dr. McFarland from Emory University, and Dr. Dalaba from the University of Health and Allied Sciences, as they discuss the role that public health economics has in the fight against NTDs.
A full bio for Dr. McFarland can be found here.
A full bio for Dr. Dalaba can be found here.
Links to more resources:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2023)
- Edwards et al., (2013). Public health economics: a systematic review of guidance for the economic evaluation of public health interventions and discussion of key methodological issues
- Turner et al., (2019). Economic evaluations of onchocerciasis interventions: a systematic review and research needs
In this episode we hear from Geordie Woods from Sightsavers and Mack Giancola on how they used a participatory evaluation approach called: Outcome Harvesting to evaluate the Accelerate trachoma elimination programme.
Click the links below for more information:
Sightsaver’s Accelerate Programme
This episode of the Last Mile Podcast will discuss how to conduct a successful focus group discussion with Dr. Doris Njomo from the Kenya Medical Research Institute, and Naomi Caplan and Dr. Mekuriaw Alemayehu from the NALA foundation.
Click the link to access the Beyond MDA report that is discussed in the podcast.
If you want more information on conducting a successful focus group discussion, click the link here.
In this episode, we will be learning about Rapid Ethnography to get a better understanding of how this kind of research methodology can help us control and eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases. To help us navigate this topic, we have brought on two special guests, Dr. Padmalochan Biswal and Dr. Satyabrata Routray.
iCHORDS Community of Practice is a platform for communication, collaboration and knowledge exchange within social and behavioural science research disciplines to address implementation gaps and current issues facing Neglected Tropical Disease programs. Given this, It is extremely important for iCHORDS to work together with other partners to understand challenges that are faced within communities so we as researchers can be responsive to needs. In this episode, we will be speaking to the Chair of Kikundi Leadership Council, a Community of Practice for NTD Program Managers in Africa – to learn more about some of the dynamic needs program managers are facing in the field.
Given the importance of mass drug administration as a health campaign to control and eliminate some of the neglected tropical diseases, we set out to learn more about leveraging the power of campaign integration to improve NTD programs. In this episode, we speak to Mariana Sarmiento & Dr. Eva Bazant.
On Episode 4 of The Last Mile podcast, you will:
- Hear about the unique career journeys of Dr. Gyapong and Dr. Ogundahunsi and how they started working within the field of neglected tropical diseases
- Learn about the components and the research team makeup in IR
- Gain insight into the different social and behavioural research methodologies used within IR
- See how the work Dr. Gyapong and Dr. Ogundahunsi do contribute to the last mile of NTD elimination and control
On Episode 3 of The Last Mile podcast, you will:
- Hear about the unique career journeys of Dr. Amuasi and Dr. Lammie and how they started working within the field of neglected tropical diseases
- Learn about the components of a good and bad research proposal
- “Peek behind the curtain” to see what happens when a batch of proposals are received for review
- Learn how to frame the potential for negative research results
- See how the work Dr. Amuasi and Dr. Lammie do contributes to the last mile of NTD elimination and control
On Episode 2 of The Last Mile podcast, you will:
- Hear about the unique career journey of Dr. Jim Lavery and how he started working within the neglected tropical diseases space
- Learn about the Research Fairness Initiative (RFI)
- Understand some of the benefits and challenges of using the RFI
- Learn about how the work Dr. Jim Lavery does contributes to the last mile of NTD elimination and control
On Episode 1 of The Last Mile podcast, you will:
- Hear about the unique career journeys of Dr. Akinola Oluwole and Dr. Kim Ozano and how they started working within the neglected tropical diseases space
- Learn about the participatory research paradigm and participatory methods
- Understand some of the challenges of using participatory methods
- Learn about some of the research impacts of the COUNTDOWN program
- Learn about how the work Dr. Akinola Oluwole and Dr. Kim Ozano conduct contribute to the last mile of NTD elimination and control
Subscribe today and join us as we interview guests from across the Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) community, hearing their stories, and how the work they are doing contributes to the last miles of Neglected Tropical Disease elimination and control
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