Call for Letters of Intent
Integrated Community based interventions
More details on business line 11:
Integrated Community based interventions
Background
Infectious diseases remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries, especially in Africa where they are responsible for 60% of all deaths. Effective and simple interventions exist to prevent or treat such infectious diseases, however, the delivery of these simple interventions to the affected populations has proven very difficult due to the weak public health systems in many developing countries, especially in Africa. Some of these promising new interventions which may not require trained health professionals to deliver have only limited impact because of the failure to have them delivered in an efficient and sustainable manner to poor populations. They can be administered at the community level by community members who have received basic training in their use. Disease control programs are therefore increasingly opting for community-based delivery strategies for these interventions which have been developed for different diseases.
Recent studies have indicated that the community directed intervention (CDI) model can greatly increase access to integrated health intervention among poor populations. This is in line with the WHO goals to promote integrated approaches that strengthen health systems. The CDI process, however, builds on established traditional structures and processes in rural African communities. The same structures do not exist in urban areas where infectious diseases are also endemic and where the health systems face equal challenges in delivering public health interventions to those who need them. Other formal and informal structures, however, do exist in urban areas and in the rural/urban interface and it has been postulated that these can be used for alternative intervention delivery models that are built on the principle of community empowerment.
The current interest in community based interventions in general, together with the momentum in global support for infectious disease control in developing countries provide a significant opportunity to develop efficient strategies for delivery of community -based health interventions not only for the rural areas but also for other special situations. New simple health intervention strategies are needed to improve access to other under-served populations in the urban and rural -urban interface.
The business line on " Integrated Community based interventions" (BL11) within the Business plan of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) fits clearly into the TDR's New 10 year vision which is, "To foster an effective global research effort on infectious diseases of poverty, in which disease endemic countries play a pivotal role". The overall strategic objective for the research under BL11 on "Integrated Community -based Interventions" is to develop innovative, effective and efficient strategies for implementing community-based interventions in poor populations.
TDR invites letters of intent on implementation research to develop and test community level health intervention strategies for urban populations.
Requirements
Ability to link up with control programmes in disease endemic countries in the design, implementation and evaluation of the research will be required
A research team that includes expertise in the Social Sciences Health Economics and Anthropology, Community health and Health Systems Research as well as Communications will be needed.
Funded studies are expected to deliver results within a time frame of 24-30 months from initial funding.
Letters of intent (LoIs) will be evaluated based on the relevance to the Call, feasibility and scientific merit. Selected LoIs will further be developed into full proposals for multicountry studies through a proposal development workshop in October, 2008 after which 4- 5 research proposals will be submitted for funding.
In the letter of intent, interested research groups should provide information on the following:
Links with a community or to a research site where the study will be conducted
Evidence of collaboration with national control programmes
Availability of the expertise required for this kind of research and institutional and logistic support.
How to apply
Interested groups are invited to submit a letter of intent of no more than 4 pages (size A4, font 12pt) outlining the following:
Project title
Background and statement of the research question
Overall and specific objectives
Overall study design
Relationship with any ongoing programme, research project, any previous research experience with CDI and network,
Proposed principal investigator, research institution and study team.
Letters of intent can be submitted in English or French. A Curriculum Vitae of the principal investigator should be attached.
Letters of intent must be submitted no later than 30 July 2008
Letters of intent should be submitted as an e-mail MS-Word file attachment (*.doc) addressed to : boatinb@who.int with copy to appiahagboglad@who.int
For additional information, please contact
Dr Boakye Boatin
mailto:boatinb@who.int