MAY 2022 | ICHAD & SMART Africa Monthly Monitor

Celebrating our Team and Trainees

During this month of graduation and new beginnings, we celebrate our team members who have graduated from several graduate programs at Washington University in St. Louis. We will miss those who are moving on to new opportunities and are grateful for their invaluable contributions to ICHAD and the children and families we work to support. We are also excited to welcome new staff members who have joined ICHAD in our Uganda and U.S. offices.

We have been welcoming our new CHILD-GRF, LEAD, and RRT trainees as well as our first cohort of trainees in our new training program, ACHIEVE. Our trainees are joining virtually and in-person from several states in the U.S. as well as Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Uganda. We are looking forward to our first summer of research training that will include in-person gathering and learning among our four programs!

We're also making final preparations for the upcoming Forum on Child and Adolescent Global Health Research and Capacity Building, an in-person gathering of trainees, faculty mentors, stakeholders, and staff, in Uganda in June 20-30, 2022. We look forward to seeing many partners in Uganda!

In partnership,

The ICHAD and SMART Africa Teams

ICHAD Welcomes Four New Cohorts of Research Trainees from the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa

ICHAD is thrilled to welcome our newest cohorts of emerging and early career experts in mental and global health research training fellows in our four NIH-funded research training programs: CHILD- Global Research Fellowship, LEAD Global Training Program, Researcher Resilience Training, and ACHIEVE! Our 33 trainees and fellows include doctoral students, post-docs, early career researchers, medical residents, and second year research fellows engaged with global and mental health disparities and stigma in low-resource settings. The trainees will strengthen their research and analytical skills through edifying investigation experience in addition to enhancing their professional networks and mentors. The research interests and proposed projects of our trainees seek to address a myriad of local and global health disparities in under-resourced communities. With projects focusing on adolescent and child mental health, HIV, non-communicable diseases, mental and behavioral health and maternal health, we can look forward to their prolific careers in research to address some of the world’s most pressing health challenges.

Our summer training session will begin June 1st for our newest research fellows from across the US, Uganda, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and Sierra Leone. The intensive summer session will include virtual and in-person workshops, meetings, and mentorship. We are thrilled to meet many of the trainees in person at our Forum on Child and Adolescent Global Health Research and Capacity Building in Kampala, Uganda, as well as local site visits in Masaka, Uganda, and St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. Many mentors who have been working virtually with our trainees will have the opportunity to connect while in Uganda and in St. Louis. We are thrilled to have these newest rising researchers join the ICHAD family! Please join us in welcoming our newest cohorts.

From top left: Allan Kalungi, Edgar Guma, Emmanuel Mpamizo, Molly Naisanga, Elizabeth Nakiyingi, Damalie Nalwanga

From top left: Angel Boulware, Zelibeth Gutierrez, Camelia Harb, Husain Lateef, Julia López, Camille Quinn, Montray Smith, Hannah Stewart. Post Doc: Lindsey Filiatreau

From top left: Dennis Boyd Jr., Jerell DeCaille, Samantha Francois, Natasja Magorokosho, Josephine Nabayinda, Flavia Namuwonge

From top left: Gbotemi Babatunde, Mamadu Baldeh, Joyce Nankumbi, Ronald Olum, Kwame Opare-Asamoah, Melissa Reimer-McAtee, Nial Tutlam. Not pictured: Samuel Adjorlolo and Catherine Musyoka

ICHAD Uganda Team Members Joining the Brown School at WashU!

This summer, ICHAD Uganda is saying good-bye to four valued team members who have made impactful contributions to our research studies and operations: Sulaiti Mutebi, Fatumah Nakabuye, Dr. Elizabeth Nakiyingi, and Edward Nsubuga. We will miss their day-to-day collaboration and commitment to advancing child, adolescent, and family health research in the field in Uganda. However, the ICHAD U.S. team is excited to have the opportunity to welcome them to St. Louis in August when they arrive at the Brown School to begin master's degree programs. Please join us in congratulating our team members and wishing them well as they advance their education!

RESEARCH STUDIES

ANZANSI Family Program

Bridges to the Future R2

Kyaterekera Project

mHealth Pilot

M-Suubi

Say No to Stigma

SMART Africa Studies

Suubi+Adherence-R2

Suubi4Cancer

Suubi4Her

Suubi4STEM

Suubi4Stigma

TRAINING PROGRAMS

ACHIEVE
CHILD Global Research Fellowship
LEAD Global Training Program
Researcher Resilience Training

UPCOMING EVENTS

June 20-30, 2022

Forum on Child and Adolescent Global Health Research and Capacity Building, Kampala and Masaka, Uganda. For more information, click here.

OTHER EVENTS, FUNDING & TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

Call for Applications

ACHIEVE Global Research Training Program

- One-year funded training program on site in a low-middle-income country (LMIC) for postdoctoral trainees and advanced doctoral students interested in global health, dissemination and implementation (D&I) and data science research.

- Open to candidates from the US and certain LMICs in Sub-Saharan Africa

- For full program and application information, click here.

Call for Applications

LEAD Global Training Program One-Year Postdoctoral Research Associate Position

- Postdocs or early career researchers with a commitment to global or domestic (US) health disparities research—especially mental health within resource constrained settings

- For full program and application information, click here.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Global Social Welfare

Global Social Welfare Special Issue: Financial Capability and Assets for Socioeconomic Development

QUICK LINKS

Our Team

ICHAD News

SMART Africa News

SMART Africa/ICHAD Conference Videos

2021 Annual Report

2021 Capacity Building

Capacity Buildng Connection

Publications

Donate

NOTABLES

Congratulations to the following trainees for their recent accomplishments!

NHIAL TUTLAM (LEAD Postdoc) is co-investigator on a new supplemental grant for the ICHAD study Suubi+Adherence-R2: Examining the longitudinal HIV treatment adherence among youth living with HIV (YLHIV) transitioning into young adulthood. The project aims to enhance inclusion of the target population by recruiting refugee youth living with HIV (RYLHIV) to understand factors around access to and utilization of HIV treatment and adherence to treatment, trauma-associated disorders, psychological functioning, and sexual decision-making, which will contribute to our understanding of the grave public health threat of HIV among vulnerable refugee youth population in Uganda.

LINDSEY FILIATREAU (LEAD Postdoc) gave three poster presentations this month at the American Causal Inference Conference in Berkeley, California:

Extending the concept of adverse events to D&I studies using causal diagrams

Instrumental Variables for Implementation Science: Efficacy in the Context of an Implementation Strategy

Intrinsic and extrinsic context of implementation strategies

Welcome New Staff!

This month, we welcome new staff to our offices in Uganda and the U.S. Allan Mugarura, Issac Kwesiga, and Meron Bakandinda have joined the ICHAD Uganda team, and Dr. Satabdi Samtani is the new Asscoiate Director for Research at ICHAD U.S. We are thrilled to welcome our new team members!

Recent Presentations

Dr. William Byansi presents at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda

On May 26, Dr. William Byansi, ICHAD postdoctoral research associate, presented key findings and lessons learned from the SMART Africa study at a brown bag luncheon at Makerere University, Department of Psychiatry. The session was attended by medical residents and faculty, and focused on the short- and long-term impact of amaka amasanyufu (multiple family groups) on behavioral health challenges of children and adolescents in the Masaka, Uganda, region.

He also shared about the new collaborative project between Washington University in St. Louis and Makerere University in Uganda focused on examining the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of youth living with HIV.

Recent Publications

Jennings Mayo-Wilson L, Yen BJ, Nabunya P, Bahar OS, Wright BN, Kiyingi J, Filippone PL, Mwebembezi A, Kagaayi J, Tozan Y, Nabayinda J, Witte SS, Ssewamala FM. Economic Abuse and Care-seeking Practices for HIV and Financial Support Services in Women Employed by Sex Work: A Cross-Sectional Baseline Assessment of a Clinical Trial Cohort in Uganda. J Interpers Violence. 2022 May 5:8862605221093680. doi: 10.1177/08862605221093680. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35510547

Sensoy Bahar, O., Nabunya, P., Nabayinda, J., Witte, S. S., Kiyingi, J., Mayo-Wilson, L. J., Filippone, P., Yang, L. S., Nakigudde, J., Tozan, Y., & Ssewamala, F. M. (2022). "I expected little, although I learned a lot": perceived benefits of participating in HIV risk reduction sessions among women engaged in sex work in Uganda. BMC women's health, 22(1), 162. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-022-01759-1