Malaria is
one of the greatest health risks in Ghana, causing more illness and death among
children in Bibiani District than any other disease. Since 2006 GHEI has been distributing free
insecticide-treated bed nets to the community. Trained Community Health Workers
(CHWs) have been involved in every aspect of the intervention, from planning to
distribution, promotion and community support. GHEI has recently had the privilege of hosting volunteers
Lisa Zhu and Judy Gbadebo, two UCLA medical students, in the village of
Soroano, where for the past few weeks they have been carrying out extensive
surveys on the use of bednets. I
had a chance to catch up with them and talk a bit about their work.
Can you describe your project for me?
JG: Yes,
our project is basically going out and surveying bednet usage in the village of
Soroano.
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| Lisa Zhu |
LZ: They
did the same survey last summer and the results were not that great, so they
made a few changes to the CHWs’ follow-up visit program. And so this year we wanted to see the
progress of the program in general and if the changes made were effective in
increasing bednet usage. We
surveyed 113 households in the village.
There was a household questionnaire, a women’s questionnaire for all
women between 18 and 49, a children’s questionnaire for children under 5. For
those children under 5 we also looked at malaria, diarrhea and respiratory
illness, and we had three CHWs help us with this.
How does your project fit in with your studies
at UCLA?
LZ: Not
directly. UCLA doesn’t have a mandatory global health component, but since both
of us are interested in global health, this counts as a summer research project
and is a really great opportunity to get experience in global health research.
How did you first hear about Ghana Health and
Education Initiative?
JG: The
global health program at UCLA had a booth, and we talked about the summer
programs that you could continue with over time, so that sparked my interest in
applying for it.
What were your expectations for coming out and
working in rural Ghana?
JG: In
terms of the project, based on our readings on the interventions last year and
since 2007, I anticipated that we would see more positive results; that there
would be a positive trend. I wasn’t
sure how great that difference would be.
LZ: Yeah, we had a pretty good idea of what
we would be doing here, since a good deal of our project was set up beforehand.
In terms of lifestyle, I knew it would be tough, but it’s hard to know what to
expect until you actually get here.
What has been the greatest challenge in running
your project?
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| Judy Gbadebo and GHEI Health Program Assistant Mensah Gyapong |
JG: Surprisingly, it’s gone rather
smoothly! One problem is that
we’re used to being really punctual back home, and we would occasionally have
some problems in scheduling. One
difficulty was trying to catch the families at home, since the majority of the
community we’re surveying are farmers, so that made it difficult to always plan
when people would be home and make sure we had the correct information on all
the people we were surveying.
What do you feel is the most important thing
you’ve learned from this experience?
JG: I was
really amazed by the CHWs' and Mensah’s (GHEI Health Program Assistant) passion
for their community. It was
amazing to see how self-sacrificing they were. They would help with this project over going to farm, and
that’s their livelihood. Seeing that just re-emphasized my passion for helping
out my community as a future physician.
Also, this experience really showed me the importance of collaboration
in our work and the value of working well as a team.
LZ: Agreed!
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