Past events

Getting Started with R for Health Data Science 

Date: 25 October 2023

Webinar: Getting started with R for Health Data Science

The 'Getting started with R for Health Data Science' webinar explored the dynamic world of R programming and its applications in health data research. This webinar serves as an entry point and offer you insights into the powerful capabilities and versatility that R brings in the pursuit of a diverse range of health research projects, focusing on data manipulation, analysis and presentation/visualisation.

Presentations:

• Overview of R programming language and demonstration, Miss Aashna Uppal
• Analysis of stunting in Bangladesh, a case study of presenting findings in R. Mr Md. Sojibul Islam
• Using R to support data preparation and visualisation for a research study in Brazil. Dr Soraida Aguilar
• User-Centred Dashboards for COVID-19 Trends in Africa. Dr Frank Kagoro

Materials from the session:

• Presentation slides (PDF)
• Downloading and installing R instructions (PDF)
• Sample case data file (Excel)
• Demo R script (R fille)

This webinar is available to replay in English, Spanish and Portugese.

English

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Spanish

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Portuguese

Ethics of Data Science in Global Health Research 

Date: 18 May 2023

Chair: 

• Frank Kagoro, Research and Data Science Capacity Building, Regional Manager Africa, The Global Health Network, Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford.

Speakers:

• Aashna Uppal, DPhil Student, The Global Health Network, Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford
• Salvia Zeeshan, Regional Manager Asia, The Global Health Network, Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford
• Matthew Retford, Technical Project Manager and Agile Scrum Master, HDR Global
• Flavia Thedim Costa Bueno, Coordinator of the Fiocruz – The Global Health Network, Fiocruz
• Larissa Pruner Marques, Data Science Coordinator Fiocruz – The Global Health Network, Fiocruz
• Luciana Moteiro Krebs, Data Curator Fiocruz – The Global Health Network, Fiocruz
• Lia Mondragon Marquez, Health Director School Clinic, UNIMED
• Daniela Morelli, Researcher, Instituto de Efectividad Clinica y Sanitaria (IECS), Global Nurse Research Coordinator, The Global Health Network, Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford

Abstract

• The current ethical issues and implications of global health research and data are rooted in the colonial history of Global health research. Such issues can be characterised by language adoption for example, the current publication landscape is biased towards English-language publications. Funding is another example, with the Global North identifying priorities and pushing their North-lead agenda and research interests over actual health priorities in the Global South. There are also ethical implications specific to data science in global health research, including those related to data collection, use, and sharing. The Global Health Network’s (TGHN) data science initiatives aim to address ethical issues in particular, and develop resources, by helping facilitate local data science capacity building. This session brought down TGHN and its regional partners to unpack this concept and introduce mechanisms to address such challenges from the Global South perspective.  

Agenda

• Ethical issues of data science in global health research 

• Reflection of ethical issues and experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. 

• General implications and solutions globally 

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Cidacs webinar: The experience of public engagement researchers in Latin America and West Africa.

The objective of the webinar was to articulate the similarities, the challenges, as well as the development and implementation of practices to advance the theme. Speakers included Maria Yury Ichihara (Cidacs/Fiocruz Bahia), Kofi Amegah (Universidade of Cape Coast - Ghana), Luisa Massarani (Fiocruz) and Phyllis Dako-Gyeke (University of Ghana).

• Importance of social participation in public health research against background of social inequalities in the Global South.
• Knowledge gained from collaboration of both countries that will help in the future of public health research through equitable, ethical and transparent research practices
• Inclusion of perspective of communities and their active participation in science

You can view the recordng in English.

You can view the recording in Portuguese. 

The Global Health Network Conference 2022 -  Session 7: Generating New Evidence from Data Related to Health

Date: 25 November 2022

• Chair remarks: Dr Amel Ghouila, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United States
• Dr Bilal Mateen, Senior Manager (Digital Technology), Wellcome, United Kingdom
• Talk 1 - plenary - Professor Nicola Mulder, Professor and head of the Computational Biology division, University of Cape Town & Leader H3ABioNet, South Africa
• Talk 2 - Valentina Martufi, Researcher Cidacs/Fiocruz, Brazil
• Talk 3 - Durga Parkhi, Postgraduate Researcher, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
• Talk 4 - Ephraim Senkyire, Registered General Nurse, Ga West Municipal Hospital-Ghana Health Service, Ghana
• Talk 5 - Christy Martina T, Research Scholar, School of Health System Studies, India
• Talk 6 - Dr Christine Mulowoza, Research Coordinator, Ministry of Health - Uganda

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Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs): The use of Trusted Research Environments in global health research

Watch: ICODA webinar series: Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs): The use of Trusted Research Environments in global health research

Date: 22 September 2022

Neil Postlethwaite, Technical Director of the International COVID-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) will introduce the concept of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) and discuss the importance of their use within global health research. He will describe ICODA’s implementation of the Fives Safes framework for enhancing privacy and trustworthiness, and highlight the use of Trusted Research Environments (TREs) as a "Safe Setting" for data analysis.He will be joined by Joseph Ouma, Senior Programmer for the periCOVID study, Makarere University Johns Hopkins University (MUJHU), Uganda, and the ICODA DP IROC study and Dr Carl Marincowitz, Principal Investigator of the PRIEST (Pandemic Respiratory Infection Emergency System Triage) Study for Low and Middle-Income Countries, Sheffield University, UK, who will describe their experiences of using TREs in their research projects.

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ICODA webinar Series: Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to curate unstructured electronic health records into research ready datasets

Watch: ICODA webinar Series: Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to curate unstructured electronic health records into research ready datasets

Date: 26 July 2022

Eric Harvey, PhD, Senior Director of Biostatistics and Data Science at MMS Holdings will present an overview of Natural Language Processing (NLP), an Artificial Intelligence technique that can be used to curate unstructured medical records. We will see NLP in action as part of the ICODA Grand Challenges 'PRIEST' project (Pandemic Respiratory Infection Emergency System Triage) Study for Low and Middle-Income Countries as a case study.

Please bring along your Natural Language Processing questions as there will be an opportunity at the end to ask the presenters.

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Presenting iPOP - International perinatal outcomes in the pandemic

Date: 22 June 2022

Watch: Presenting iPOP - International perinatal outcomes in the pandemic

Hear Meghan Azad, Natalie Rodriguez, Merilee Brockway and David Burgner, co-leads of the International Perinatal Outcomes in the Pandemic (iPOP) Study, supported by HDR UK, talk about the work of the iPOP team over the last 2 years. The iPOP study explored the impact of the pandemic lockdown on preterm births worldwide, including variances across countries.

Preterm birth is the leading cause of infant death worldwide, but its causes are largely unknown.  During the early COVID-19 lockdowns, dramatic reductions in preterm births (up to 90% in Denmark) and very low birth weight (70% in Ireland) were reported. Lockdowns dramatically impacted maternal workload, access to healthcare, hygiene practices, and air pollution – all of which could impact preterm birth rates and might affect pregnant women differently in different regions of the world. To examine these trends globally, the  iPOP team established an international consortium involving over 150 collaborators from 42 countries in less than 6 months.

This is an exciting opportunity to hear about the work of the iPOP team on this important research question, and the challenges and lessons learned during the course of this study.

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Efficacy and safety of Covid-19 treatments - a summary of the methodology and results

Date: 30 March 2022

Hear Névine Zariffa, ICODA's Driver Project 1 Lead & President of the NMD Group, and Jaap Mandema (Chief Innovation Officer, Certara), talk about the work their team has carried out over the last 18 months to conduct a holistic evaluation of the efficacy and safety of treatments of COVID-19. In the presentation we will hear about repurposed drugs that were studied in both randomized clinical trials and observational real-world studies.  The team systematically evaluated both types of studies to see if their results aligned or diverged, and what factors might explain the divergence if any.  They also evaluate whether an initial methodology for combining both sets of studies can provide us reliable and faster answers about the therapeutic potential of repurposed drugs to treat COVID19.  This is an exciting opportunity to hear the results of this important body of work.

Connecting Excellence in Data Science across Africa

14/12/21 Side session at the CPHIA2021 conference

Chaired by Dr Thomas Nyrienda, EDCTP & Faith Nfii, AfricaCDC

Talk 1 - Prof Nicky Moulder eLwazi Open Data Science Platform and Coordinating Center
Talk 2 - Dr Mahamoud Sama Cherif Maximising health gains from existing data: experience from Ebola
Talk 3 - Sammy Khagayi, Data Analyst, KEMRI- CGHR, East Africa Consortium for Clinical research (EACCR)
Talk 4 - Lauren Hookham IROC study, Uganda Incidence and risk factors for COVID-19 among pregnant and lactating women and their infants in Uganda
Talk 5 - Hannah Hussey, Jamy-Lee Bam, Alex Heekes ACCORD study, South Africa The Western Cape Provincial Health Data Centre model, and experience with SARS-CoV-2
Talk 6 - Naomi Waithira Reuse of clinical research data: from barriers to opportunities.

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Evaluating the Global Impact of COVID-19 on Child Health and Births

21/09/21

In 2018 at least 5.3 million children under 5 years died globally of preventable conditions which include. While gains have been made over the years to improve access to New-born and Child health services in low-and- middle income countries, some gaps still exist. It is therefore imperative that the global community assesses the impact of COVID-19 on new born and child health using high quality data, and to understand the underlying cause(s) to ensure that the hard-won gains from many years of investments are not eroded in the short term.

Talk 1 - Studying Perinatal Health Internationally during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The iPOP Study.
Talk 2- Repercussions of social isolation due to Covid19 on Neonatal ICU child patients.

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Equitably Harnessing the Power of Health Data: Time for Action and Collaboration

01/03/21

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of generating rigorous evidence for decision-making. To bring equity, the global health research community needs to find ways to unite and generate actionable insights from data. This interactive session will explore how collaborations and strategic partnerships can harness the power of data to tackle the most devastating health issues. We will draw on the experience of The Global Health Network and the International COVID-19 Data Alliance, convened by Health Data Research UK, and several speakers from around the world.

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