Browsing by Author "Fonn, Sharon"

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    CARTA fellows’ scientific contribution to the African public and population Health Research agenda (2011 to 2018)
    (BMC Public Health, 2020) Igumbor, Jude O.; Karimi, Florah K.; Bosire, Edna N.; Basera, Tariro J.; Uwizeye, Dieudonne; Fayehun, Olufunke; Wao, Hesborn; Ajuwon, Ademola; Otukpa, Emmanuel; Conco, Daphney; Gitau, Evelyn; Fonn, Sharon
    Background: Since its inception in 2009, the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) program has focused on strengthening the capacity of nine African universities and four research centres to produce skilled researchers and scholars able to improve public and population health on the continent. This study describes the alignment between CARTA-supported doctoral topics and publications with the priorities articulated by the African public and population health research agenda. Methods: We reviewed the output from CARTA PhD fellows between 2011 and 2018 to establish the volume and scope of the publications, and the degree to which the research focus coincided with the SDGs, World Bank, and African Development Bank research priority areas. We identified nine key priority areas into which the topics were classified. Results: In total, 140 CARTA fellows published 806 articles in peer-reviewed journals over the 8 years up to 2018. All the publications considered in this paper had authors affiliated with African universities, 90% of the publications had an African university first author and 41% of the papers have CARTA fellows as the first author. The publications are available in over 6300 online versions and have been cited in over 5500 other publications. About 69% of the published papers addressed the nine African public and population health research agenda and SDG priority areas. Infectious diseases topped the list of publications (26.8%), followed by the health system and policy research (17.6%), maternal and child health (14.7%), sexual and reproductive health (14.3%). Conclusions: Investments by CARTA in supporting doctoral studies provides fellows with sufficient training and skills to publish their research in fields of public and population health. The number of publications is understandably uneven across Africa’s public and population priority areas. Even while low in number, fellows are publishing in areas such as non-communicable disease, health financing, neglected tropical diseases and environmental health. Violence and injury is perhaps underrepresented. There is need to keep developing research capacity in partner institutions with low research output by training more PhDs in such institutions and by facilitating enabling environments for research
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    Effective supervision of doctoral students in public andpopulation health in Africa: CARTA supervisors’ experiences,challenges and perceived opportunities
    (Global Public Health, 2022) Igumbor, Jude O.; Bosire, Edna N.; Karimi, Florah K.; Katahoire, Anne; Allison, Jill; Muula, Adamson S.; Peixoto, Anna; Otwombe, Kennedy; Gitau, Evelyn; Bondjers, Goran; Fonn, Sharon; Ajuwon, Ademola
    The quality and success of postgraduate education largely rely on effective supervision. Since its inception in 2008, the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) has been at the fore front of providing training to both students and supervisors in the field of public and population health. However, there are few studies on supervisors’ perceptions on effective doctoral supervision. We used a mostly descriptive study design to report CARTA-affiliated doctoral supervisors’ reflections and perceptions on doctoral supervision, challenges and opportunities. A total of 77 out of 160 CARTA supervisors’ workshop participants responded to the evaluation. The respondents were affiliated with 10 institutions across Africa. The respondents remarked that effective supervision is a two-way process, involving both supervisor and supervisee’s commitment. Some reported that the requirements for effective supervision included the calibre of the PhD students, structure of the PhD programme, access to research infrastructure and resources, supervision training, multi disciplinary exposure and support. Male supervisors have significantly higher number of self-reported PhD graduates and published articles on Scopus but no difference from the females in h-index. We note both student and systemic challenges that training institutions may pursue to improve doctoral supervision in Africa
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    Increasing collaborative research output between early-career healthresearchers in Africa: lessons from the CARTA fellowship program.
    (Global Health Action, 2020) Uwizeye, Dieudonne; Karimi, Florah K.; Otukpa, Emmanuel; Ngware, Moses W.; Wao, Hesborn; Igumbor, Jude Ofuzinim; Fonn, Sharon
    In 2008 nine African Universities and four African research institutions, in partnership withnon-African institutions started the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa(CARTA) to strengthen doctoral training and research capacity on health in Africa. Thisstudy describes particular aspects of the CARTA program that promotes collaborationbetween the PhD fellows in the program, and determines the patterns of collaborativepublications that resulted from the intervention. We reviewed program monitoring andevaluation documents and conducted a bibliometric analysis of 806 peer-reviewed publica-tions by CARTA fellows published between 2011 and 2018. Results indicate that recruitingmultidisciplinary fellows from various institutions, encouraging registration of doctoral-levelfellows outside home institutions, and organizing joint research seminars stimulated colla-borative research on health-related topics. Fellows collaborated among themselves and withnon-CARTA researchers. Fellows co-authored 75 papers (10%) between themselves, of which53 (71%) and 42 (56%) included fellows of different cohorts and different disciplines respec-tively, and 19 (25%) involved fellows of different institutions. CARTA graduates continued topublish with each other after graduating – 11% of the collaborative publications occurredpost-graduation – indicating that the collaborative approach was maintained after exitingfrom the program. However, not all fellows contributed to publishing collaborative papers.The study recommends concerted effort towards enhancing collaborative publicationsamong the CARTA fellows, both doctoral and post-doctoral, which can include holdingresearch exchange forums and collaborative grant-writing workshops
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    Repositioning Africa in global knowledge production
    (The Lancet, 2018-08) Fonn, Sharon; Ayiro, Laban Peter; Cotton, Philip; Habib, Adam; Mulwa, Peter; Mbithi, Felix; Mtenje, Alfred; Nawangwe, Barnabas; Ogunbodede, Eyitope O; Olayinka, Idowu; Golooba-Mutebi, Frederick; Ezeh, Alex
    Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 13·5% of the global population but less than 1% of global research output. In 2008, Africa produced 27 000 published papers— the same number as The Netherlands. Informed by a nuanced understanding of the causes of the current scenario, we propose action that should be taken by African universities, governments, and development partners to foster the development of research-active universities on the continent.
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    Resilience of research capacity strengthening initiatives in Africa duringcrises: the case of CARTA during COVID.
    (Global Health Action, 2023) Karimi, Florah K.; Vicente-Crespo, Marta; Ndwiga, Mercy; Njenga, Naomi; Karoki, Rita; Fonn, Sharon
    Background: Several research capacity strengthening (RCS) initiatives have been established in Africa over the past decade. One such initiative is the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) that has gained traction over the years and has been proven as aneffective multidisciplinary approach to strengthen research capacity to address public and population health in Africa. Objectives: In this article, we document the experiences and management-related interventions that cushioned the CARTA programme and enabled it to remain resilient during the COVID pandemic. We further make recommendations on the enablers of resilience and optimal performance of such RCS initiatives during crises and beyond. Methods: We used routine information gathered by the CARTA secretariat from consortium correspondence, meeting minutes, reports and other related documents pro-duced in the year 2020 in order to consolidate the experiences and interventions taken by the programme at programmatic, institutional and fellowship levels. Results: We identified a series of management-related cyclic phases that CARTA went through during the pandemic period, which included immobilisation, reflection, brainstorming, decision-making, intervening and recovery. We further identified strategic management-related interventions that contrib-uted to the resilience of the programme during the pandemic including assessment and monitoring, communication management, policy and resource management, making invest-ments and execution. Moreover, we observed that the strength of the leadership and manage-ment of CARTA, coupled with the consortium´s culture of collaboration, mutual trust, respect,openness, transparency, equitability, ownership, commitment and accountability, all contribu-ted to its success during the pandemic period. Conclusion: We conclude that RCS initiativesundergo a series of phases during crises and that they need to promptly adopt and adaptappropriate management-related strategic interventions in order to remain resilient duringsuch periods. This can be significantly realised if RCS initiatives build a culture of trust,commitment and joint ownership, and if they invest in strong management capacity.