The interdisciplinary Master Class in Global Health and Development took place in the week of 23 – 27 November 2020 as part of the Joep Lange Chair and Fellows Program. The Master Class consisted of two online sessions of two hours.
The previous year’s Master Class had been held in October 2019 under the theme ‘Access to Care: Making Health Markets Work for the Poor’ and had received an overwhelming response. It featured numerous high-level submissions and lively parallel sessions where selected participants presented their work to esteemed JL Chairs: Prof. Mark Dybul, Prof. Dan Ariely, Prof. Anna Vassall, and Prof. Catherine Kyobutungi. You can read about the previous year’s Master Class here.
The chosen theme for this year’s Master Class was ‘Societal Preparedness for Epidemics.’ Late-stage PhD students and early postdoctoral researchers were invited to submit abstracts of their research addressing the specified topics, including COVID-19 and other epidemics such as Ebola.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the profound impact of its causative agent, SARS-CoV-2, on society in multiple dimensions. Notably, the implementation of COVID-19-related hygiene measures resulted in a decrease in the incidence of several infectious diseases. However, the pandemic’s effects, such as overcrowding in healthcare systems and reduced visits to health facilities due to infection fears, led to a decline in the treatment of other prevalent diseases. COVID-19 response measures like lockdowns had severe repercussions on daily incomes, job losses, business bankruptcies, and prompted governments to establish large-scale social and economic support programs. The pandemic also had extensive implications for the social fabric and mental health of populations, exacerbating social inequalities among different socio-economic and minority groups. Furthermore, COVID-19 posed challenges in the realm of (inter)national law, such as ensuring access to vaccines developed with state financial support and striking a balance between privacy protection and mobile-phone-based contact tracing apps.
Prof. Mark Dybul, Prof. Anna Vassall, Prof. Catherine Kyobutungi, and Prof. Melissa Parker led the Master Class. Two parallel online classes were held during the week of 23 – 27 November 2020, with two Masters facilitating each class. Each class was divided into two sessions and accommodated a maximum of 12 participants. A selected group of participants had the opportunity to present and discuss their research, fostering knowledge sharing, idea exploration, and interdisciplinary learning among researchers in various fields of Global Health and Development within this unique research setting.
About the Joep Lange Chair and Fellows Program
The Joep Lange Chair and Fellows Program was established in 2015 in memory of prolific HIV activist, medical doctor and scientist Prof. Joep Lange. Funded in part by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the program was commissioned by the Joep Lange Institute and is based at the Department of Global Health-Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD) at the Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam. The current chair holders are Prof. Mark Dybul, Prof Anna Vassall, Prof. Catherine Kyobutungi and Prof. Dan Ariely.
Prof. Mark Dybul addresses the role of ‘communities of practice’ in creating efficiencies in health and healthcare provision with an emphasis on the lessons that can be learnt from HIV. Prof Anna Vassall assesses economic impact of innovative interventions in health and healthcare financing, such as mobile health exchange platforms. Prof. Catherine Kyobutungi addresses the management and prevention of non-communicable diseases, in particular CVD, learning from the long-term experiences of HIV management in Africa. Prof. Dan Ariely addresses the conditions under which people in Africa participate in health exchange platforms, how to nudge economic behavior of people towards more healthy lifestyles and prepayment for health.
Below is a list of accepted abstracts and presenter bios for Masterclass 2020
Katrina Perehudoff
Katrina Perehudoff, MSc LLM PhD, is a health scientist and legal scholar with over a decade of experience in pharmaceutical policy. She is currently a Post Doctoral Research Fellow in European and Global Health at the Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands). She is also affiliated with the Amsterdam Centre for European Law & Governance (ACELG), the Amsterdam Institute of Global Health & Development (AIGHD), and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Governance, Accountability, and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector (University of Toronto). Katrina’s research focuses on the development, formulation, implementation, and evaluation of law and policy interventions in the field of pharmaceuticals and public health. She draws on concepts, methods, and interpretive lenses from her training in health science and law. Katrina applies her research findings in practice through her involvement as a Board Member of the Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation and the European Association of Health Action International.
Please find Katrina’s abstract here.
Carolina dos D. Ribeiro
Carolina dos S. Ribeiro studied veterinary medicine (at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Brazil) and Global health (at the VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands). She works as policy advisor at the Dutch National Centre for Infectious Disease Control at RIVM, and is external PhD student leasing with the Athena Institute from the School of Earth and Life Sciences at the VU University Amsterdam. Carolina Ribeiro participated as a junior scientist in the COMPARE project, where she researched and produced 3 reports on addressing the PEARL (political, ethical, administrative, regulatory and legal) barriers to the sharing of microbial and pathogen genetic data. This involves inter alia in-depth study on ownership barriers to the sharing of microbial genetic resources, performance of workshops with different organizations on the topic of global data sharing, research on the impact of the Nagoya Protocol on the sharing of genetic resources through biobanks and culture collections, research on barriers to the design and implementation of One Health initiatives, and finally research on innovation and product valorization in the field of infectious disease response and control. Currently, Carolina is working on two European and international projects of EVA-GLOBAL (European Virus Archive goes) and VEO (Versatile Emerging infectious disease Observatory). In these projects she is performing research on the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol in a global decentralized collection of microorganisms addressing ethical, legal and administrative challenges; and on the ELSI (ethical legal and social) implications of combining big data with traditional epidemiological and molecular data for enhancing infectious disease management, including through the performance of citizen-aided science
Please find Carolina’s abstract here.
Alex Morgan
Alex Morgan is currently a 3rd year PhD student, supervised by Professor Mark Woolhouse and Dr Bram van Bunnik at the University of Edinburgh. His current research involves using mathematical modelling techniques to understand the transmission dynamics of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and COVID-19. He is particularly interested in understanding the impact of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions to interrupt transmission in these systems.
His current research interests include mathematical modelling of infectious disease, and understanding infectious disease with a “one health” perspective. Additionally, Alex is very interested in understanding how academic research translates into public and global health policy and mental health within academia.
Please find Alex’s abstract here.
Nwanneka Okere
Nwanneka Okere is a goal-oriented Research Scientist with excellent planning, organization, and project management skills. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD) leading research which seeks to explore the differentiated HIV service delivery strategy as it impacts patients’ quality of life and access to quality care. Nwanneka is friendly and loves to travel and experience other cultures.
Please find Nwanneke’s abstract here.
Tusajigwe Erio
Tusajigwe Erio is a social scientist and a PhD student in Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. For more than eight years she is affiliated with the National Institute of Medical Research in Tanzania engaged in several multidisciplinary studies. Tusajigwe develops expertise in health research with special interest in women and girls sexual and reproductive health. She is currently working with Amsterdam Institute of Global Health Development (AIGHD) where her current research study focuses on Social dynamics of readiness and responsibility in the HIV Treat All era in Shinyanga and Simiyu Regions, Tanzania.
Please find Tusajigwe’s abstract here.
Wally Toh
Wally Toh is a PhD student in the health economics group at Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. Wally is particularly keen on policy-relevant research on socio-economic issues. She is interested in exploring the use of different techniques across fields and sub-fields to study the same issue.
Please find Wally’s abstract here.
Shannen van Duijn
Currently, Shannen is working as a Jr. Project Manager specialized in Connected/Digital Health in the Research & Learning team at PharmAccess. She is working on several studies related to Connected Diagnostics and aspire to obtain a PhD in Digital Health Interventions. With her background in Innovation Sciences and International Public Health, she would like to contribute to the health and wellbeing of those who are vulnerable, by implementing innovative approaches in the delivery of healthcare services.
Please find Shannen’s abstract here.
Marcos Dominguez
Marcos Dominguez is in the third year of his PhD in Development Economics at Wageningen University & Research. He obtained a BSc and MSc in Economics from the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon (Mexico) and the University of Essex (United Kingdom), respectively. Marcos has 10 years’ experience working with the Governments of Nuevo Leon and Monterrey, where he oversaw planning, monitoring, evaluation and accountability processes. His PhD research explores the cognitive and emotional barriers for healthy food choices in Mexico, with special focus on school-age children. His research on consumer demand for healthier bread products was carried out in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH). Marcos is an advocate of healthy lifestyles, which involves podcasting, blogging, entrepreneurship, cooking and practicing sports.
Please find Marcos Dominguez’s abstract here.
Welile Sikhondze
Dr Welile Sikhondze is a Public Health Specialist with extensive training and experience in TB research and epidemiology with a focus on Clinical-Laboratory interface strengthening for integrated disease surveillance and evidence-based decision making. She did her MBCHB and MPH training in South Africa at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and University of Cape Town, respectively, and has worked for academia, research organizations/PDP and public health programmes in South Africa, Switzerland and currently in Eswatini/Swaziland. Welile is a TB Technical Expert on a number of WHO Guideline Development Groups/Strategic advisory groups, Global TB Research Taskforce, TDR and EDCTP TWGs. She’s passionate about data-driven policy making and strategic planning and has supported the conduct of several WHO Epidemiological and TB Programme reviews in a number of African countries since 2014 as a TB Technical Advisor.