Category Archives: COMDIS-HSD news

COMDIS-HSD partners active players at 12th International Conference on Urban Health

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Source: joiseyshowaa, Flickr. CC-BY-SA

Source: joiseyshowaa, Flickr. CC-BY-SA


COMDIS-HSD partners joined urban health experts from across the world at the 12th International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH) held in Dhaka, Bangladesh in May.
Playing an active role across the 4-day event, our Nepal partners, HERD and Bangladesh partners, ARK Foundation, gave detailed presentations on their ongoing research in the urban health field.
HERD presented some key issues from its Urban Health Project aimed at supporting the government to develop an urban health policy and strategy in Nepal. These included the need for clear evidence about the extent of urban poverty and the needs of the urban poor.
Following an in-depth exploration of the urban policy development process in Nepal by HERD senior research officer, Sudeepa Khanal, her colleague and HERD programme manager, Hom Nath Subedi, contributed to a detailed Q&A session answering questions from the floor about their experiences so far in developing the strategy.
ARK research associate, Farid Ahmed, gave a presentation on the rationale behind their current study on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to improve access to family planning services in Bangladesh. Specifically, the presentation focused on using the PPP model to increase access among the urban poor to Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC)..
ARK also presented on the limitations of existing household surveys in identifying the health needs of the poorest urban dwellers. In the presentation ARK volunteer Ru-Yi Lin illustrated how samples used in existing surveys are skewed towards the wealthiest urban residents.
Solutions to these challenges, such as new sampling and mapping techniques, were presented by Dana Thomson (Harvard Medical School), and HERD’s Uden Maharjan presented on the use of these techniques in Kathmandu in the initial phases of HERD’s urban household survey.
The conference, the first ICUH to be hosted in Asia, acknowledged that cities are drivers of national development. Delegates used their joint concluding statement to agree that the health of people in cities should be a central concern in sustainable development, pointing specifically to the need for capacity building, applied research and stronger governance for urban health.
Currently more than half the world’s population lives in cities and by 2050 it is estimated that 70% of the world’s population will be urban dwellers. While this presents challenges for all countries, delegates emphasised that the pace and scale of urbanisation is now most rapid in low and middle-income countries.
Read more about our partners’ reflections on ICUH 2015.

COMDIS-HSD reflections on ResUpMeetUp symposium and training

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resup-croppedCOMDIS-HSD was well represented at the recent ResUpMeetUp symposium and training, with attendees from Nepal (HERD), China (Global Health Research and Development) and Uganda (Malaria Consortium). Sudeep Uprety (HERD) presented a paper on strengthening the media’s response to urban health issues in Nepal. Badru Gidudu Walimbwa (Malaria Consortium) also presented a paper on assessing and addressing barriers to IPTp uptake in Uganda. Both presentations were very well received. Read the reflections on this workshop from our 3 attendees here.

Persistent headaches? Blurred or double vision? Regular nosebleeds? Get your blood pressure checked!

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Bottles and bags with diabetes and health promotion messages

Bottles and bags with diabetes and health promotion messages


This was one of the messages shared in Swaziland recently by Good Shepherd Hospital staff during their Family Health Promotion Day. They day included diabetes and hypertension screening and staff developed a selection of bags and bottles with the following health promotion messages written in Siswati:

  • Hypertension can be treated. Get your blood pressure checked!
  • Persistent headaches? Blurred or double vision? Regular nosebleeds? Get your blood pressure checked!
  • Diabetes can be treated effectively. Get checked for diabetes!
  • Excessive thirst? Frequent urination? Tiredness? Get checked for diabetes! It is treatable.
  • Eat a balanced diet and help to avoid diabetes and hypertension
  • Do 30 minutes of physical activity everyday and help to avoid diabetes and hypertension

Elsewhere at Good Shepherd Hospital, staff are now trained in TB infection prevention following the launch of their hospital wide TB Infection Prevention and Control Policy.

Influencing TB policy and practice in Bangladesh using a Public-Private Mix approach

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PPP bangladeshIn a high TB burden country such as Bangladesh, National TB Control Programmes (NTPs) often adopt the Stop TB Strategy. These are delivered primarily through government-run health facilities, but these programmes often have little contact with private medical practitioners (PMPs).
COMDIS-HSD developed a Public-Private Mix (PPM) model to involve private doctors in the National TB Programme’s urban TB control activities. We piloted the PPM model in 4 research sites in Dhaka city. The study came up with 6 key policy messages and 6 key research findings.

Writing for policy makers? Why not use the 7 rules of plain English

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The 7 rules of plain English


How do you begin to present your research findings outside of the academic community? This presentation is for researchers who are faced with a blank sheet of paper whenever they try to write about their findings to anyone outside of their academic community.
The 7 rules for writing in plain English are:
1. Keep your sentences short
2. Prefer active verbs
3. Use ‘you’ and ‘we’
4. Avoid jargon: use words that are appropriate for the reader
5. Don’t be afraid to give instructions
6. Avoid nominalisations
7. Use lists where appropriate

Improved tools for assessing respiratory rate would strengthen rational use of antibiotics

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Dr Kirstie Graham attended the Health Services Research conference in London and shared the results of Malaria Consortium’s study into the rational use of antibiotics by community health workers (CHWs) and caregivers in Zambia. Findings show that:

  • CHWs are capable of assessing respiratory rate and prescribing appropriate treatment
  • Improved tools for assessing respiratory rate would strengthen rational use of antibiotics
  • A 3-day rather than 5-day course of antibiotics could improve caregiver adherence, reducing the risk of drug resistance and cost. However, additional evidence is needed to support the use of a short course of antibiotics for pneumonia in Africa.

Also at the conference, Anna Gagliardi mentioned 3 different tools that could be used to help develop and implement guidelines: 1) GRADE, 2) GLIA, and 3) AGREE. Elsewhere, Susan Michie focused on the process for designing effective interventions for behaviour change, with particular reference to The Behaviour Change Wheel to help support and simplify the process of using behaviour change techniques in designing interventions.
The conference covered many wider health systems research topics you can view abstracts here and Dr Graham’s blog about the conference here.

The importance of providing counselling and financial support to patients receiving treatment for MDR-TB

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Stigma workshop in Nepal

Stigma workshop in Nepal


A recent paper by COMDIS-HSD researchers outlines how patients with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) face extreme social, financial and employment hardship, with most patients having to move house, leave their job, and face stigmatisation.
The paper concludes that given the vulnerability of MDR-TB patients, counselling combined with financial support could go a long way to reducing their vulnerability, as well as increase cure rates. The paper recommends that National TB Programmes incorporate financial support and counselling into MDR-TB care; the costs are low and the benefits are high.

Hear our research findings presented at the 44th Union World Conference on Lung Health

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COMDIS-HSD was well represented at the 44th Union World Conference on Lung Health

COMDIS-HSD was well represented at the 44th Union World Conference on Lung Health


COMDIS-HSD was well represented at the 44th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Paris, with papers presented by Prof Xiaolin Wei (GHRD, China) and Dr Sushil Baral (HERD, Nepal). You can hear the following presentations and view their slides here:

  • Financial and Social Support to Internal Migrant TB Patients in Shanghai: An Intervention Study;
  • Developing and Implementing a Smoking Cessation Intervention within the Practical Approach to Lung Health in Nepal, including a poster.

Our long association with the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease continues with Dr Amir Khan taking up his new position as the Vice-President of the Union, as well as Dr Xiaolin Wei taking up his new position as the Chair of the Tobacco Control Section. Their tenure lasts until late 2015.

Prof Xiaolin Wei to review family physician training for National Development and Reform Commission in China

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Prof Xiaolin Wei, Head of Global Health Research and Development, our partners in China


China’s National Development and Reform Commission has launched a series of family physician training programmes in 10 different cities, covering both the east and west provinces of China. Prof. Xiaolin Wei, Head of Global Health Research and Development, is an expert in primary care and has been chosen to lead a review of the training programme in Guiyang province.
The programme is part of the Chinese government’s plan to create a primary care referral system where patients seek care from family physicians first, and are then referred to big hospitals for specialist care only. The programme forms part of a wider health reform initiative to strengthen primary care facilities, such as Community Health Centres (CHCs) in urban areas and township hospitals in rural areas.
The health reform initiative also aims to discourage profit-seeking behaviours at the primary care level and to promote the use of drugs on the essential drug lists, therefore eliminating mark-ups on drugs dispensed in CHCs. Other strategies include promoting health insurance coverage, reforming public hospitals and establishing the essential medicines programme.