The Water and Health in Limpopo Innovations Fellowship Program

描述（由申请人提供）：林波波水与健康创新奖学金项目将在未来五年内为12名博士后提供全球卫生创新方面的跨学科培训，其中6名来自美国，6名来自南部非洲农村。该方案将重点关注与之密切相关的问题，即南部非洲农村地区难以获得水和卫生设施，以及与幼儿腹泻相关的高发病率和高死亡率。弗吉尼亚大学（UVa）和南非文达大学（University of Venda, South Africa）之间近十年的合作由国际公认的全球卫生领袖和儿童早期腹泻（ECD）专家，弗吉尼亚大学的Richard Guerrant博士和UNIVEN教授兼微生物学主席Pascal Bessong博士领导。这一合作得到了来自两个机构的多学科教师小组的支持，他们在肠道疾病、农村水净化战略、农村护理、社区规划、基于代理人的建模、儿童发展、跨文化人种学以及与水和人权有关的南非法律方面具有特别的专业知识。该小组是在过去四年中成立的，并制定了跨学科和跨海洋协调、奖学金和培训的协议和战略。WHIL创新奖学金将为来自美国和南部非洲的有前途的博士学位准备的潜在全球卫生领导人提供机会，使他们有机会参加有指导的全球卫生研究和教育培训，特别侧重于水的获取和质量以及幼儿发展。培训方案的主要目标是：(1)培养参与创新的全球卫生研究合作所需的技能，包括社区参与、农村水管理、测量幼儿发展影响、全球卫生模拟建模、跨学科合作、全球卫生研究伦理、项目等方面的具体培训

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Water and Health in Limpopo (WHIL) Innovations fellowship program will provide cross-disciplinary training in global health innovation to twelve post-doctoral fellows, six from the United States and six from rural Southern Africa, over the next five years. The program will focus on the closely related issues of poor access to water and sanitation in rural areas of Southern Africa and unacceptably high rates of morbidity and mortality associated with early childhood diarrhea. The nearly decade old collaboration between the University of Virginia (UVa) and the University of Venda, South Africa that will host this program is led by the internationally-recognized global health leader and early childhood diarrhea (ECD) specialist, Dr. Richard Guerrant, at UVa, and by Dr. Pascal Bessong, UNIVEN Professor and Chair of Microbiology. The collaboration is supported by a multi-disciplinary group of faculty from both institutions with particular expertise in enteric disease, rural water purification strategies, rural nursing, community planning, agent- based modeling, child development, cross-cultural ethnography, and South African law related to water and human rights. This group has formed over the past four years and has developed protocols and strategies for trans-disciplinary and trans-oceanic coordination, scholarship, and training. The WHIL Innovations fellowship will provide promising doctorally-prepared potential global health leaders from the US and Southern Africa with the opportunity to participate in mentored global health research and education training with a particular focus on access to and quality of water and ECD. Major objectives of the training program are: (1) To build skills necessary to engage in innovative global health research collaborations including specific tailored training in community engagement, rural water management, measurement of impacts of ECD, simulation modeling in global health, trans-disciplinary collaboration, global health research ethics, project management, and laboratory management; (2) To conduct an innovative, mentored global health research project in the context of the multi-disciplinary WHIL program; and (3) To develop a portfolio of research and training outputs that will serve as a framework from which to develop individual efforts and as a resource for future fellows and other trainees. We plan to recruit fellows from many disciplines and expect to attract outstanding candidates thanks to our well-established and diverse faculty training group. We expect that our trainees will contribute meaningful new research relating to rural water and sanitation provision and ECD in the context of the WHIL program. More importantly, we will ensure that they are prepared to think with innovative pragmatism about these issues meaning that, as they develop exciting new interventions, processes and policies, they will anticipate and incorporate questions of community acceptability, efficacy, affordability, accessibility, and scalability.