Department of Epidemiology and Global Health (EpIGH), Umeå University.

Department of Epidemiology and Global Health (EpIGH), Umeå University

Institutional Lead: Anna-Karin Hurtig, MD, MSc, PhD

Anna-Karin Hurtig is professor in public health with a focus on health policy and systems research. She is currently the Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Global Health at Umeå University, Sweden. She has collaborated in research and capacity building in areas of Primary Health Care for more than twenty years, mainly in several sub-Saharan countries. During the last years she has increasingly been involved in health systems research in Sweden. She serves on the board of the Swedish Association for Social Medicine and Public Health and in the Committee for Development Research of the Swedish Research Council. After practising clinical medicine, she pursued further studies in public health and obtained Master´s and Doctoral degrees from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.” https://www.umu.se/en/staff/anna-karin-hurtig/

Core team members

Miguel San Sebastián, MD, MSc, PhD

Miguel is a professor in public health in the department of Epidemiology and Global Health at Umeå University, Sweden. He practiced public health during 12 years among indigenous communi­ties of the Amazon basin of Ecuador. Currently working as Professor teaching different courses at Master and PhD level. His current research is focused on strength­ening health systems in low-income countries and social inequalities in health in the Swedish context. He is also the health research leader at Várdduo-Center for Sámi Research. https://www.umu.se/en/staff/miguel-san-sebastian/

Moses Tetui, PhD

Moses is an associate professor at the department of Epidemiology and Global Health at and a Postdoctoral researcher at the School of Pharmacy, University of Waterloo, Canada. Moses also holds an affiliation with the Makerere University School of Public Health in Uganda. His current research works include building confidence in Covid-19 vaccines in Canada by engaging with diverse stakeholders such as Public Health authorities, community members and a multidisciplinary research team.  His other research works include contraceptive use in urban informal settlements, access to maternal and neonatal health services, health managers capacity development and knowledge translation. He is motivated by a desire to make health systems more responsive for the most vulnerable across the world. https://www.umu.se/en/staff/moses-tetui/

Mazen Baroudi, MD.

Mazen is a Syrian/Swedish paediatrician who is currently in his last year of PhD in public health at Umeå University Sweden. His thesis is about young migrants’ access to sexual and reproductive health and rights in Sweden. He is interested in health systems research, sexual and reproductive health and rights’ research and research and practices related to migration health. Dr. Mazen is a member in Umeå Migration and Integration Network and a co-coordinator of the academic space of “Politics, policies and primary healthcare” at the department of Epidemiology and Global Health in Umeå University. https://www.umu.se/en/staff/mazen-baroudi/

School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape

School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape

Institutional lead: Helen Schneider, MBCHB, MMED, PhD

Helen Schneider is a public health specialist and health systems and policy researcher who has worked for more than 25 years on South Africa’s health system. She joined the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape in 2011 and was its Director from 2013 to 2016. Since 2015, she has been the director of the UWC/MRC Health Services to Systems Research Unit, and in 2016 was awarded a South African Research Chair in Health Systems Governance.  Helen’s current research and policy interests include community health systems, including South Africa’s Ward Based Outreach Team Strategy; governance and leadership of national community health worker programs; approaches to district health system strengthening and governance; and more recently, the governance of intersectoral action for health.

Core team members

Manya van Ryneveld, Msc.

Manya is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her research interests sit at the intersection of critical social theory and health systems. Her Ph.D. research takes a comparative look at locally organized, everyday care responses to HIV/AIDS and Covid-19 in Cape Town, with a focus on how these interact with the state and the formal health system’s response. She has an undergraduate background in Social Anthropology and History and a master’s in International Health.

Olagoke Akintola, PhD

Olagoke Akintola is a teacher, researcher and health promotion practitioner, and activist with training in several diverse fields. This includes public health promotion, gender, social/economic development, medical anthropology, addictions/mental health and research methods. Olagoke is an Associate Professor with the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape.

His primary teaching and research interests are in critical global public health promotion. Olagoke’s broad research interests are in the intersections of power, health and health services development, delivery & uptake in low- and middle-income countries. His current research is on primary health services delivery and uptake among school-going children in marginalized communities in South Africa, health journalism in South Africa and access to HIV services among MSM in Botswana

School of Public Health, University of Zambia

School of Public Health, University of Zambia

Institutional Lead: Charles Michelo, B.Sc., MB ChB, MPH, MBA, PhD

Charles Michelo is a Professor of Epidemiology and Founding Dean at School of Public Health, University of Zambia (UNZA). He is Director for Harvest Research Institutes at Harvest University, a research institution. His research interest that started with focus on HIV surveillance systems has evolved to include a wider aspect of health systems but concentrated in medical education for infectious diseases, maternal & adolescent health, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and now concentrates on community health systems functioning in terms leadership and governance. This is evidenced by his wide publication record in peer reviewed and high impact journals in these areas arising from several research grants he has led. Furthermore, he doesn’t only serve on various corporate entities and boards, but he has also been pivotal in transforming public health training and practice in Zambia by helping other Universities and Zambia National Public Health Institute to get established. As part of this, he is best known to have pioneered the development of the first ever School of Public Health in Zambia, hosted at UNZA and now leading the first proclaimed research University (Harvest University) in Zambia. He has supervised and mentored several masters, doctoral and post-doctoral candidates. He possesses a rare and unique combination of management as well as public health technical skill mix.

Core team members

Joseph Mumba Zulu, PhD

Joseph Mumba Zulu is a Professor of Community Health at the School of Public Health at the University of Zambia (UNZA), and Director for the Institute of Distance Education at UNZA.  He has formerly worked as Director for the Research Support Centre, Assistant Dean Research, Program Manager for the Regional Masters in Implementation Research at UNZA.  He has experience in community health systems, research ethics, sexual reproductive health and rights, health policy and systems, gender, neglected tropical diseases, infectious diseases and social protection.   He is an Assistant Editor for BMC Reproductive Health. He has research experience in many African countries including Malawi, Uganda, Botswana, Egypt, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Guinea Conakry.

Chama Mulubwa BSc, MPH

Chama is a part-time PhD student in Public Health at Umeå University, Sweden with a thesis focus on adolescents sexual and reproductive health. She also serves as a part-time lecturer in the Health Promotion Department at the School of Public Health, University of Zambia, and member of adolescents technical working group. For the past 6 years, Chama has accumulated extensive experience working in sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS and health systems related research. Previously, she has also served on studies involving key populations (men who sleep with men, transgender, female sex workers, clients to female sex workers and drug users). Some research methods and designs she has worked with include realist evaluation, participatory research (photo elicitations, Drawing Out, photo journals) and quantitative designs (Case control, cohort and cluster randomized trials

Makerere University

Makerere University

Team Lead: Freddy Eric Kitutu, PhD

“Dr. Freddy Eric Kitutu is a Senior Lecturer of Health Systems Pharmacy and Researcher at Makerere University in Uganda. He served as the Dean of the School of Health Sciences at Makerere University College of Health Sciences from August 2019 to April 2022. Dr Kitutu is a member of the Epidemiology Advisory Committee of the Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics (PRESIDE) that was promulgated in April 2020, chaired by the Senior Presidential Advisor on Epidemics. PRESIDE has contributed to the national COVID19 response. He has a doctoral degree in Medical Science from Uppsala University, Sweden. He teaches courses for undergraduate pharmacy students and postgraduate pharmacy and public health students. His research interests include antimicrobial consumption and use as a driver of antimicrobial resistance, interventions to promote antimicrobial stewardship and patient safety (including diagnostics, patient record systems, infection prevention and control), adequate access to life-saving health technologies and implementation research at the interface of formal health structure, health markets and community health systems. He is part of a multidisciplinary and global group of researchers and scientists who conduct inquiry into how to create and co-formulate Sustainable Pharmaceutical Systems in low and middle income countries.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2277-9572. Freddy Eric Kitutu – Google Scholar

Core team members

Philip Wandru, MPH

Phillip Wanduru is a PhD candidate at Karolinska Institutet in the Department of Global health and Makerere University School of Public Health. He holds a Master of Public Health and Bachelors in Nursing. Phillip has previously worked as a nurse in a rural hospital in Uganda. He is currently a health system research fellow. His research interests are in maternal, newborn, and child health services delivery at facility and community levels. Over the past 7 years, he has coordinated several projects that focused on improving quality of health care provision for vulnerable mothers and babies.

School of Public Health and Social Sciences, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences.

School of Public Health and Social Sciences, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences

Institutional Lead: Nathanael Sirili

Nathanael is a Medical Doctor working as a Lecturer at the School of Public Health and Social Sciences of the Muhimbili University, Tanzania. He received his Master of Science in health systems from Muhimbili University in 2014 and Ph.D. in Public Health from Umeå University in Sweden in 2018. Nathanael is conducting research, consultancies, and capacity-building programs in health systems (health workforce), health policy, maternal health, and HIV/AIDS. He has published over 30 research articles in international refereed journals from the latter. He is a coordinator to several bilateral research collaborations, consortiums and professional networks for health systems strengthening that involve both low- and high-income countries.

Core team members:

Gasto Frumence (BA, MA, Ph.D.)

Gasto Frumence is an Associate Professor in the Department of Development Studies, the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, which he also served as the Head of Department from July 2017 to July 2020. Since August 2020, he serves as the Dean of the School of Public Health and Social Sciences. He has a wide experience of research in Health systems, focusing more on local governance structure, decentralized health systems, and Human Resources for Health including Community Health Workers. He has also extensively worked in other research areas including Community participation in health Planning, Public-Private partnership in Health, Social Capital and Health, HIV/AIDS, eHealth, policy analysis, and Gender-based violence. He has worked as a consultant with several agencies and institutions including UNICEF, GIZ, PATH, AMREF Health Africa, Ministry of Health, and President Office – Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG). He is currently leading Health Systems Research projects aiming at

(i) Strengthening Health System Research for Enhancing Innovations and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development in Tanzania

(ii) strengthening Health economics in Tanzania and

(iii) strengthening management, leadership, and governance knowledge and skills among health officers for eradication of malaria in 6 African countries with a high burden of malaria (Tanzania Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, DRC, and Uganda).

Luco Patson Mwelange

Luco is an Environmental and Public Health expert and Assistant lecturer in Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences-School of Public Health and Social sciences at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health. He holds a bachelor degree in Environmental Health (2013) and Masters in Environmental and Occupational Health (2019) from MUHAS. He is conducting researches, consultancies in: Occupational Health, Water Sanitation Hygiene (WASH), climate change and Health, environmental risk assessment, disaster management and risk reduction. He is currently working on his PhD programme aiming at assessing the occupational risk factors for work- related cancer in Tanzania.

Rebecca Mkumbwa, MA

Rebecca is a Journal Administrator at the Directorate of Research and Publications of the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Tanzania. She holds a Bachelor degree in Human Resources Planning and Management and currently pursuing a Master of Science degree in Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation in Health at MUHAS.  She has worked with various research projects as an administrator and working to further grow her skills in research.