Building Heart, Lung, Blood and Sleep Diseases and Disorders Late-Stage Translation Phase 4 Research Capacity in Malawi

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Building Heart, Lung, Blood and Sleep Diseases and Disorders Late-Stage Translation Phase 4 Research Capacity in Malawi Project Summary Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including heart, lung, blood and sleeping diseases and disorders (HLBS) are increasing in prevalence globally. In Africa, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the burden and risk factors for these conditions in order to design context specific interventions. In Malawi, despite the growing burden of HLBS, there is a shortage of locally relevant research evidence and a critical mass of scientists. The proposed program will build sustainable HLBS-focused late-stage translation phase 4 research (T4TR) capacity in Malawi and will utilize this capacity to do in-depth research of infrastructure and diseases burden needs assessments to design a context specific HLBS T4TR research plan. The application brings together a consortium of key institutions already involved in HLBS training and research in Malawi. The consortium is purposefully designed to build capacity within the University of Malawi-College of Medicine (COM), the only public medical school in the country, and the Malawi Ministry of Health (MoH), to ensure sustainability. This application focuses on four overarching aims: 1. Skills development activities to build HLBS T4TR capacity within COM's faculty, graduate students, and postgraduate clinical trainees and frontline health workers from MoH and implementation partners. This skills development will leverage two of the consortium's ongoing research training programs (the COM-University of North Carolina's ongoing implementation science training program (NIH D43 TW010060-01: M-HIRST) and the Pan African Thoracic Society, Methods in Epidemiologic, Clinical and Operations Research (PATS-MECOR) program led by the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme (MLW). This skills development program will be supplemented by a mentored research awards and an internship program housed at partners' implementation sites. 2. We will conduct an in-depth national HLBS T4 research infrastructure needs assessment using short written surveys, facility visits and audits, nominal focus group discussions and telephone interviews. 3. A disease burden assessment will be conducted using existing data on disease prevalence surveys supplemented by cross- sectional surveys and thorough literature reviews. 4. Finally, we will utilize the skills development activities together with the findings of the needs assessments to create a comprehensive, actionable, and Malawi specific T4TR research plan for priority HLBS. We will utilize local, national, regional and international dissemination avenues to disseminate program experiences and findings.