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The IID&GH Training Program will offer four major courses that rotate between the major research sites. Trainees are eligible to attend two international courses and one national course during their enrollment in the Training Program.
1)
Ecology of Infectious Diseases (Eco ID) (offered
in Winnipeg in years 1,4 and 6): This graduate course, developed at the UM by the Training Program, demonstrates to students the inter-relatedness of infectious diseases with their physical, social, biological, and cultural surroundings. During the first section of the course, infectious diseases are viewed from a number of different perspectives such as pathogenesis, clinical science, host responses to infection, public health interventions, medical anthropology, global health, Aboriginal issues in infectious diseases and zoonotic infections. In the second section, a number of applied topics are covered, designed to improve the students’ ability to plan, prepare and execute a scientific proposal as well as prepare for their future as researchers. The final assignment is to write a CIHR-format multi-disciplinary grant.
The
following are some specific comments from trainees:
- “Overall,
the course was excellent – one of the best I have taken.”
- “I
think the format is the best feature of the course.”
- “It
(the course) made me more sensitive to the need for a
multi-disciplinary approach to ID’s.”
- “Every
lecture was a tour de force.”
- “Would
highly recommend to other students.”
- “Multi-disciplinary
approach was great. I learned so much.”
- “The
grant writing exercise was immediately useful, highly
applicable, directly relevant. Gold.”
2)
Planning, Implementing and Evaluating Scaled HIV Prevention and Care Programs among Vulnerable Populations (FSW/MSM) in Resource-poor Settings (offered in Bangalore in Years 2 and 5)
This
course is based on an existing course developed by Stephen
Moses, Jamie Blanchard, and colleagues in India with the
Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT), based in Bangalore.
This course was taught in February 2011 and September 2014 in partnership with the Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT). Targeted interventions focusing on groups at high risk for HIV are the cornerstone of HIV prevention programming in most developing country settings, including India. The course began by laying a strong foundation in understanding HIV epidemiology and presenting perspectives around HIV/AIDS, leading onto program planning, implementation and monitoring components. Teams of trainees were given the topic of designing HIV prevention programs for a specific population. Field visits to rural communities allow teams to research the topic, learn from participants and interact with program delivery staff. The teams then present their proposals (10 pages and 30 min oral presentation) to a panel of experts.
3)
Clinical Trials and International Research Ethics Course
(offered in Nairobi in years 3 and 7):
The
first week of this course will focus on International
Research Ethics, coordinated by Joseph Kaufert from the University
of Manitoba. This course will explore issues of community
consent, ethical collaborations between North-South partners,
and the ethics of research in highly vulnerable communities
among other topics. The course will be co-presented by
Ross Upshur of the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre
for Bioethics and Eric Meslin of Indiana University’s Center
for Bioethics (see letter of collaboration). Both of these investigators
have existing collaborations and projects with African
colleagues and have presented courses in Africa
as part of their NIH Fogarty Training Program grant in
international bioethics.
The second week of this course will focus on the clinical trial which is the
gold standard to evaluate a new drug or health intervention. This course, led
by Dr. Joshua Kimani, who has extensive experience as a clinical trials site
monitor in African and Asia, will provide trainees with sessions on; Basics
of Clinical Research, Best Practices Models: Good Laboratory Practice/Good
Clinical Practice, Ethical Issues in Clinical and International Researcher,
Data Collection and Document Management in Clinical Trials, Clinical Trials
Management, Cohort Development, Clinical Trials Monitoring and Site Assessment.
Dr. Fowke has collaborated with the St. Boniface Office of Clinical Research
(OCR) in the past and they have expressed an interest in collaborating on delivering
a clinical trials course in Kenya. The OCR has a collection of well established
courses they offer in clinical trials and working with our Kenya colleagues
they can be adapted for the Nairobi course.
4)
Practical Epidemiology and Indigenous Health Course
(offered in Medellin, year 4):
This is the newest course for the IID&GH Training Program and it focused on the fundamentals of epidemiology, data analysis, maternal health and manuscript writing. During the first half of the course, the trainees attended lectures covering basic epidemiological techniques and applied them to data analysis of collected scientific data. The second half of the course the trainees travelled from Medellin to Riohacha, La Guajira, in the Northeastern part of Colombia. There the trainees attend a two-day International Indigenous Health Care Symposium where Health Ministry representatives and experts in indigenous health from Colombia and Venezuela were in attendance. Lastly, the trainees visited the rural Indigenous communities of the Wayuu people of La Guajira in Northeastern Colombia to observe the process of obtaining informed consent and the collection of data through interviews conducted as part of a maternal health survey.
Course information is available under the Course Information link in the left menu.
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