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A qualitative research in Yemen to explore the factors driving child marriage in the current humanitarian situation. Aims to understand the norms and practices surrounding child marriage as well as how the phenomenon could be addressed. Though conducting field visits to collect data on child marriage in Yemen through focus group discussions (FGDs) with community members, including affected individuals, family members, and community leaders. During the field visits a total of 16 FGDs were conducted across three governorates in Yemen (Taiz, Sana’a, and Marib governorates), involving 96 participants.
Team
Abdullah Alosaimi (Yemen, Finland). Susanne Dahlgren (Finland), Birgitta Essén (Sweden), Amal AlZahmi (United Arab Emirates), Mansoor Qaid Ebrahim (Yemen), Anu Leinonen (Finland), Nasser Yahya Al-Hantabi (Yemen), Khaled Alosaimi (United Kingdom)
Diseases have no borders. A disease anywhere in the world may become a health threat everywhere. It takes less than 36 hours for an outbreak to spread from a remote village to any major city in the world, therefore, the most effective – and cost effective – way to protect people from such health threats i.e measles, cholera and COVID-19 is to stop them before they spread to others and cross borders. Here comes the role of public health surveillance. Public health surveillance is the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data. An effective disease surveillance system is essential to detecting disease outbreaks quickly before they spread, cost lives and become difficult to control. Digital technologies can improve the ability to both detect and respond to disease outbreaks by sharing data swiftly thus helping us to understand how and where diseases are spreading. This information is crucial for deciding what health policies and strategies to make and follow. Significance of this research is not limited to one country but it has global health dimensions. It can help to address the critical issue of global health security by evaluating the impact of digital technologies on public health surveillance. Low and middle income countries (LMICs) including Pakistan have fragile health systems therefore the risk of spreading diseases, even beyond their borders, is high. Disease surveillance system in Pakistan has largely been outdated and paper based, frequently leading to delayed detection of measles, cholera and other communicable disease outbreaks. In 2017, Ministry of Health Pakistan, with support of World Health Organization (WHO), launched Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system which uses electronic health information system (District Health Information System – DHIS-2) as a platform for rapid and near real time reporting for selected diseases. From 2017 to 2022, the new system was implemented in 52 districts of the country while remaining 104 districts are still using paper based system. The dual existence of different reporting systems presents a unique opportunity for a comparative analysis, allowing for insights into the effectiveness of the digital transition. As a doctoral researcher, I will conduct an evaluation to address the existing knowledge gap regarding the effectiveness of transitioning from traditional paper-based disease data reporting systems to new digital systems. Specifically, my research will focus on evaluating the impact of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) and District Health Information System 2 (DHIS-2) initiatives in Pakistan. This evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness of new electronic infectious disease surveillance system in enhancing the country's health system capabilities. I aim to conduct a comparative analysis of the performance between DHIS-2, an electronic system, and traditional paper-based systems through cross sectional study, evaluate the effectiveness of the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) framework and the District Health Information System 2 (DHIS-2) through a comprehensive assessment and explore the determinants influencing the adoption of electronic surveillance systems through a mix method study. The local research infrastructure is well-established, with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pakistan under Ministry of Health serving as a central data hub for disease surveillance and public health information. The presence of this infrastructure is vital for the success of the research project, as it provides access to comprehensive and up-to-date data on disease surveillance, outbreaks, and response efforts across Pakistan. The NIH website hosts weekly epidemiological IDSR reports. These reports serve as a rich source of information, forming the foundation for the research and ensuring the reliability and relevance of the data collected. Furthermore, the International Doctoral Programme in Epidemiology and Public Health at Tampere University, drawing on its expertise and research strength, will help to improve the quality and depth of the research findings. Together, these elements of the research infrastructure will contribute to the robustness of the study. The research project is feasible as IDSR implementation, led by Ministry of Health Pakistan, is already in progress with support of WHO. I have five years of practical experience, as a public health expert, in disease surveillance, monitoring and evaluation with World Health Organization, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and UK Health Security Agency. My previous role as the Training Coordinator in the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) project has been very relevant. Research will be implemented in phased manner starting from kick off meetings, ethical approvals to data collection, data analysis, reporting and dissemination and finalization and publications. The results of this study may help to improve global health security by examining how well digital health information systems detect and respond to diseases quickly. In Pakistan, the findings might help strengthen the healthcare system, providing useful guidance to policy makers and contributing to practical strategies for better public health monitoring. My research is in line with the European Union's recent Global Health Strategy, which is a cornerstone of the EU's external policy. Addressing and mitigating health threats, particularly pandemics, is highlighted as a key priority within this strategy. Through my research, I aim to contribute to this overarching goal by examining the effectiveness of infectious disease surveillance systems, ultimately working towards a healthier and more resilient global community.
Team
MAKUTANO - means "gathering" in Swahili. The MAKUTANO research project aims to develop appropriate and new methodological and theoretical approaches for environmental collaboration and conflict resolution to be used in Tanzania and elsewhere. The action research approach will be used to find out if urban forest owners influence forest governance, and induce local conflicts over resource utilization. The project provides skills on environmental collaboration and conflict resolution to a group of small- and medium-scale forest owners and local community members in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, and traces how these skills are transformed and used in the future actions of these forest owners and the surrounding communities. The project is funded by the Develop Academy Programme (2019-2022), which is a programme jointly prepared by the Academy of Finland and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. In many developing countries, there has been a transfer of public and open access land to private use. In the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, the promotion of small-scale private plantation forestry has attracted domestic investors to capture this new resource frontier to meet the increasing demand for timber. This has further increased land value and consequently also land related disputes. The main objective of MAKUTANO research project is to study skills on environmental collaboration and conflict resolution methods among a group of forest owners and local community members in Southern Highlands, and to trace how these skills are transformed and used in the future actions of these forest owners and the surrounding communities. The research idea has emerged from Tanzanian small scale forest owners. The project outcomes may influence Tanzanian-Finnish collaboration by promoting social safeguards to mitigate unexpected impacts of plantation forestry. The research collaboration involves international partners from Tanzania, Kenya, Mexico and Denmark.
Team
Irmeli Mustalahti, Antti Erkkilä, Ida Herdieckerhoff, Aristarik H. Maro, Ubaldus J. Tumaini, Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba, Mara I. Hernández Estrada
Forests play a fundamental part in the well-being of humankind, and restoration of forests has now emerged as a global priority. Yet, it is still poorly understood how efficiently forest restoration can bring back the complexity of functioning ecosystems, such as the crucial networks of species interactions. In this project, we study the assembly of food webs during tropical forest restoration in Kibale National Park, Uganda.
Team
Sille Holm Geoffrey M. Malinga
Antibiotics have made it possible for people to live longer, healthier lives. Antimicrobial resistance, however, is an increasing problem, especially in low-resource settings. This project will employ a range of methods from microbiology, clinical medicine and sociology to produce new knowledge about how AMR genes spread especially in poor West African regions, in areas where local capacity to address AMR is lagging behind, and identify ways to curb the spread of AMR. This knowledge can be utilized in national and international health policy and medical research.
Team
Isidore Bonkoungou, Victorien Dougnon, Kaisa Haukka, Bourema Kouriba, Salla Sariola, Marko Virta
Emerging technologies such as affordable smart phones with 4G access, broadband internet, and interactive interfaces employing gestures or speech, are revolutionizing the ways we access information, learn new skills and interact with the world around us. However, developing world communities - who stand to benefit from such technologies - were, until recently, largely neglected. Interactive technologies provide a means to address learning challenges such as functional illiteracy and information access barriers, and can improve learning and education, health and wellbeing, and agricultural practices.
Team
Markku Turunen, Jaakko Hakulinen, Mikko Ruohonen, Sumita Sharma, Pekka Kallioniemi, Juhani Linna
The FinCEAL Plus BRIDGES project (2019-2020) supports the development of partnerships and collaborative research activities between the Finnish research community and those in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In addition, the project facilitates connections with European partners, whenever the cooperation also includes partners from the target regions. The project is an extension of the FinCEAL (2013-2014), FinCEAL Plus (2015-2016) and FinCEAL Plus Continuation initiatives, all financed by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Previously, the focus of FinCEAL has been on supporting research collaboration in the thematic areas determined by the EU's bi-regional science, technology and innovation (STI) policy dialogues with Africa, Asia and LAC. FinCEAL BRIDGES will continue to contribute towards strengthening bi-regional cooperation, while expanding the thematic focus to the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Global Partnerships for Sustainable Development (Goal 17). On a national level, BRIDGES also supports the International Strategy for Higher Education and Research 2017-2025. The Ministry has mandated the UniPID network to coordinate the initiative.
Team
Building on the successes and outcomes of the previous FinCEAL and FinCEAL Plus projects, the FinCEAL Plus Continuation project aimed to provide strategic support to enhance the cooperation between research and science policy communities in Finland, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The specific objectives of the project were to: 1. Strengthen Finnish participation in the EU STI policy dialogues with the target regions; 2. Support Finnish participation in joint research projects with partners from the target regions; 3. Enable Finnish expertise and know-how to be better known in the target regions; and 4. Gather and disseminate information on Finnish cooperation towards the regions within Finland as well as new cooperation possibilities with the target regions.
Team
Eva Kagiri, Kajsa Ekroos, Jarkko Mutanen, Melissa Plath
FinCEAL Plus started in January 2015 as an expansion and continuation of the FinCEAL Project (2012-2014), both funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The aims of the FinCEAL Plus project were to: 1. Increase and consolidate the Finnish bi-regional cooperation towards Africa, Asia, and the LAC region, with special emphasis on supporting Finnish researchers’ involvement in European bi-regional networks; 2. Support and consolidate the participation of Finnish experts in EU-Africa, EU-CELAC and EU- Asia bi-regional research and science policy dialogues; 3. Increase the knowledge about and visibility of Finnish cooperation towards the target regions within Finland; 4. Expand the awareness of Finnish expertise in the regions; and 5. Expand and consolidate the Finnish research communities’ awareness of cooperation possibilities with the EU, Africa, Asia and LAC region. 6. Throughout all the project activities, strengthening the Finnish universities’ global responsibility and making it more systematic and measurable.
Team
Eva Kagiri, Kajsa Ekroos, Jarkko Mutanen, Melissa Plath
The two-year FinCEAL pilot project aimed to enhance cooperation between research and science policy communities in Finland, Europe, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean by networking the Finnish research community and by supporting their participation in bi-regional research projects and science policy processes. FinCEAL was an initiative funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and implemented by UniPID, the Finnish University Partnership for International Development. FinCEAL activities were focused on the following thematic areas, derived from the European Union's bi-regional science, technology and innovation policy processes: Africa – Food Security, Information Society, Health, Climate Change and Renewable Energy; LAC – ICT for Societal Challenges, Bioeconomy, Biodiversity and Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Health.
Team
Eva Kagiri, Kajsa Ekroos, Melissa Plath