Most cases
of childhood diarrhea are mild, but acute cases can lead to substantial fluid
loss and dehydration. Children are
more susceptible to life-threatening diarrhea than adults, making diarrhea the
2nd leading cause of mortality for children under 5 in Ghana (behind malaria). Diarrhea affects children’s nutrition
and overall health status, which in turn affects child health and development.
This past
month UCLA med students Danielle Ogez and Alicia Morehead-Gee volunteered with
GHEI, working alongside Community Health Workers in the rural village of
Ampenkrom to conduct a survey on the incidence of diarrhea, as well as the use
of Oral Rehydration Treatment (ORT).
I was lucky enough to catch them for a quick interview about their work
on their last day before departing for Accra.
Can you describe your project for me?
DO: Sure.
Our project was to run a survey regarding diarrhea prevalence and ORS (Oral
Rehydration Salts) in the village of Ampenkrom, and the second part was to do
some sort of intervention to increase ORS usage and increase diarrhea knowledge
in Ampenkrom.
How did you hear about GHEI?
 |
| Danielle Ogez |
DO: The
UCLA department of global health has four sites to do summer research projects.
AM: Diana
Rickard (GHEI Executive Director) works at UCLA. She introduced this summer research program to the UCLA
department of global health.
What made you want to come to Ghana to carry
out this project?
AMG: Well,
Ghana had the option of doing the specific ORT and diarrhea project. We had four sites to choose from: there
was Malawi, Cameroon, Peru and Ghana.
The Ghana project had the ORT project, where we could speak with
mothers, and personally I wanted to have more of a community involvement and
talk to mothers about these issues.
DO: The Ghana site was more pediatrics
related, which fits with my studies.
What were your expectations in coming out to
rural Ghana to conduct this project?
DO: My expectations were to get a better
feel for how to do quality research at a small local level. We usually see it a large, USAID type
of level, so I wanted to see how it’s done door-to-door, sitting and
interviewing someone in their kitchen, those types of situations.
AMG: I
intended on coming and learning more about a different community. I’ve studied abroad before so I like
being immersed in a new culture, so I wanted to come learn about their culture
and make a difference in what is going on here. I liked that this project had an intervention component to
it, so that we could try to change some of these problems.
What do you feel has been the greatest
challenge in carrying out your work?
AMG: We had
hoped to have more participation in the (intervention) classes we ran, so that
was pretty frustrating. We had a
lot of things in mind that didn’t end up happening.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned
from the experience?
 |
| Alicia Morehead-Gee and GHEI Community Health Workers |
AMG: I learned that life in the village is
good! Some people paint the
picture that it’s so horrible out there, but when you get out there everyone
seems stress-free; it’s a peaceful and really nice environment, which is quite
different than how the media portrays Africa.
DO: I feel
like I got what I wanted out of this experience. Now I could go to another rural community, conduct some sort
of survey, run an intervention and collect some quality data. That was my goal coming out here, and I
feel I’ve reached it!
Thanks Alicia and Danielle. Great work!
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