The Latest News from VIGH

In partnership with Lwala Community Alliance (Lwala), VIGH faculty member Troy Moon, M.D., MPH, provided mentorship to Vanderbilt medical student Sarah Heerboth to conduct a study assessing the level of knowledge of obstetric and neonatal danger signs among Community Health Workers (CHW) in rural western Kenya. Lwala centers on a community led health model, transforming traditional birth attendants into CHWs.

This year, 11 students graduated with a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Global Health, and seven received the Graduate Certificate in Global Health. Although official in-person Vanderbilt University graduations have been postponed to May 2021, the MPH Program held a virtual celebration for graduates and their families, friends, and mentors on May 8. The celebration included heartwarming presentations from students about their experiences in the Program and celebrated students who received awards. Congratulations, graduates!

This spring marked the 10th anniversary of the Global Health Case Competition at Vanderbilt, cementing the event as both campus tradition and evidence of a sustained commitment to collaborative problem-solving in global health at the university. Since 2011, over 1000 student participants and volunteers have participated in the competition, coordinated by Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health’s Student Advisory Council.

At the end of March, the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health received a long-awaited message from Liberia – the 40-foot shipping container of medical books and other laboratory equipment donated by the Vanderbilt School of Medicine had survived it’s journey across the ocean and arrived at its final destination, the University of Liberia. The letter signaled the end of a nearly year-long donation effort at Vanderbilt and the beginning of new opportunities for current and future medical students in Liberia.

South Africa has more HIV/AIDS patients than any other country and is home to the world’s largest antiretroviral program. According to the World Bank, as of 2018 the prevalence of HIV among South Africans ages 15 to 49 was 20.4%. Nearly one in three pregnant women attending antenatal care in South Africa is living with HIV. As South Africans with HIV move around the country, there is a risk they will disengage from the health care system or otherwise become lost to follow-up care.

Justin Banerdt, a fourth-year MD/MPH candidate, received the 2020 Excellence in Public Health Award from the United States Public Health Service Physician Professional Advisory Committee in recognition of his commitment to expanding access to care for underserved populations across resource-restricted settings worldwide.

Each year, graduate students at Vanderbilt demonstrate that global health isn’t just the realm of doctors and nurses. The work of improving health access and outcomes at home and around the world takes passionate practitioners working together across fields. For this reason, Vanderbilt’s interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Global Health program attracts graduate students from across campus to engage in joint training and explore the ways in which their respective fields intersect with public health. This spring, seven graduating students will receive the Graduate Certificate, representing academic programs in international education, economic development, biomedical engineering, community research and action, and medicine. In addition to certifying coursework in Global Health, the Certificate demonstrates to peers, faculty, and future employers that students have a sustained commitment to solving community challenges with global relevance.

The world is currently witnessing a dramatic disruption of everyday life owing to the rapid progression of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As the pandemic evolves, there is an urgent need to better understand its epidemiology, characterize its potential impact, and identify mitigatory strategies to avert pandemic-related mortality. There is a need for a tool or algorithm to evaluate the extent to which public health policy and/or economic preparedness measures are effectively averting COVID-19 related mortality. We present a simple and yet practical epidemiological tool, the Pandemic Efficiency Index (PEI), that can be utilized globally to test the relative efficiency of measures put in place to avert death resulting from COVID-19 infection. Using the PEI and current COVID-19-related mortality, we determined that so far Germany demonstrates the highest PEI (5.1) among countries with more than 5,000 recorded cases of the infection, indicating high quality measures instituted by the country to avert death during the pandemic. Italy and France currently have the lowest COVID-19-related PEIs. Epidemics and pandemics come and go, but local, national, and global abilities to determine the efficiency of their efforts in averting deaths is critical.

The NIH-Fogarty supported UNZA-Vanderbilt Training Partnership for HIV-Nutrition-Metabolic Research (UVP) continues a multi-decade training collaboration between the University of Zambia School of Medicine/University Teaching Hospital (UNZA/UTH) and the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH).

“Terrorism, Healthcare, and Displacement in the West African Sahel,” the second event in a series of workshops hosted by the GlobalVU initiative, will take place on Feb. 21 in the Student Life Center’s Board of Trust Room.

The Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) has partnered with Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) in Kano, Nigeria to improve epilepsy treatment uptake. The groups will conduct a randomized trial in three cities in northern Nigeria to determine the efficacy of shifting epilepsy care to community health workers.

In a recent study of self-reported non-receipt of HIV test results in Mozambican adults, VIGH researchers and colleagues discovered an understudied problem in HIV testing and counseling services and suggested targeted and individualized communication approaches for specific demographic groups.

The Global Health Case Competition is an opportunity for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to collaborate in developing innovative solutions to a global health problem. Participants compete in teams of 4-6 students. Each team must have at least three (3) different Vanderbilt or Meharry schools/colleges represented. Global health is an interdisciplinary field and draws its strength from a diversity of perspectives.

VIGH faculty and colleagues surveyed 30 comprehensive HIV clinics in Nigeria and found they are experiencing major challenges in providing routine HIV services as a result of PEPFAR’s policy changes. The findings were published in PLOS ONE.

The University of Zambia (UNZA)-Vanderbilt Training Partnership for HIV-Nutrition-Metabolic Research (UVP) made substantial progress on its goals of training new UNZA PhD scientists to investigate complex nutritional and metabolic factors related to long-term HIV complications and comorbidities. The paper entitled, "HIV Research Training Partnership of the University of Zambia and Vanderbilt University: Features and Early Outcomes," was recently published in Annuals of Global Health.

Dramatic reduction in specimen turnaround time and access to thousands of viral load results offers significant life-saving opportunities Viral load sample verification Photo credit: Rui Esmael

Marie Martin, PhD, MEd, assistant professor of Health Policy, has been named associate director for Education and Training in the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH). Marie Martin, PhD, MEdMartin stepped into the role at the beginning of the fiscal year, succeeding Douglas Heimburger, MD, MS, who will focus his time on leading projects with grant funding from the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Heimburger started in 2009 as associate director of Education and Training.