India

India

Partnering Institute - Asian Institute of Public Health-AIPH, in Orissa state

UNMC CoPH students are currently engaged in conducting their Capstone and Special Topic service learning projects by working at Indian medical schools, municipal hospitals and villages of Orissa, India, under the local mentorship of Prof. S. K. Satpathy and N. Chaudhury at AIPH; holding adjunct appointments at CoPH-UNMC. 

U.S. students utilize an array of opportunities to learn various aspects of social and behavioral health while some conduct highly sophisticated laboratory research at participating laboratories and participate in clinical research. Below left – Kristine Schartz at a molecular microbiology laboratory working on antibiotics resistance in the community.  Below right – UNMC students in a village examining factors affecting care seeking behavior of rural women and evaluating the impact of new rural health programs introduced by the federal government in India.

NIH-funded clinical trial of probiotics to prevent infections biggest killer in all developing countries) in India

Two hospital-based clinical trials have recently been completed enrolling 31 and 284 babies respectively, followed by a pilot trial enrolling 250 babies in the community setting. Dr. Panigrahi is currently directing a large community trial of probiotics funded by a new R0-1 grant. Over 3,500 babies have been enrolled in this ongoing study. Physicians, nurses, community workers have been trained to implement this study adhering to strict GCP guidelines that are followed in the U.S.  Dr. Panigrahi conducting an audit in an infant’s home (right).

Profs. Ayman El-Mohandes and Ira Gewolb watch the process of probiotics administration at home and informed consent procedures and adherence to GCP guidelines (left)

Chronic Disease monitoring in rural and tribal settings using informatics tools

Ashish Joshi, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor at CGHAD has completed a demonstration project where he developed, and used portable technologies to support chronic disease surveillance in diverse settings in resource limited environments. These evaluations have been done in urban, rural, tribal and slum settings in India, are multilingual, and can be deployed in other diverse settings. Populations living in rural Nebraska and adjacent agricultural states can be the immediate beneficiaries of such technologies.

Below - Blood pressure and blood glucose monitoring in tribal districts of Sundargarh, Orissa, India