Public health tools are focus of Fiocruz events with The Global Health Network
The end of October was focused on initiatives that discussed useful tools for those working in public health. Two events organised in partnership with the Fiocruz Hub at The Global Health Network show that technology should be an important ally of health.
On October 20th, part of the Vacina Maré project team, coordinated by researcher Fernando Bozza of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases Evandro Chagas (INI/Fiocruz) met for the workshop “Tools for fostering engagement and mobilization in Public Health”. Having as guests two international researchers, the professors Kay Nathan, from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Dhiraj Agarwal from the King Edward Memorial Hospital Research Centre in Pune, India, they gathered aiming at exchanging experiences and knowledge about community mobilisation and engagement strategies in public health actions.
Another important discussion involving the Vacina Maré Pathfinder Project Team, linked to the Fiocruz Hub, was about the uses of R as a tool to promote data analysis in the health field. On October 25th, Soraida Aguilar, presented the experience of the ICODA project to a major audience.
Exchange of experience
The first event provided a space to discuss the promotion of community engagement and mobilisation in public health actions. In addition to the guest researchers and the Vacina Maré coordinator, Professor Silvio Hamacher (PUC-Rio), Redes Maré coordinator, Luna Arouca, researcher, Laís Araujo (PUC-Rio), Professor Soraida Aguilar (PUC-Rio), data scientist Cláudio Esteves (Fiocruz), as well as members of the Fiocruz hub and the Vice-Presidency of Education, Information and Communication at Fiocruz (VPEIC/Fiocruz), data coordinator Larissa Pruner, executive coordinator Flávia Bueno and science popularizer Letícia Carvalho, joined the session.
During the workshop, researchers noted the importance of recording the research process and using tools such as the Pathfinder tracker, which can enable steps, activities, results, products, and actors involved to be organised and systematised in one space. Such tools can strengthen memory recovery and research process mapping and encourage sharing, reuse and data linkage, as well as the scientific dissemination of results.
The use of R in health data analysis
Another important tool discussed last October was the use of R, in the webinar 'Getting started with R for Health Data Science', organised by the HDR UK Global Team, in partnership with the Vice-Presidency of Education, Information and Communication (VPEIC) of Fiocruz, involving the Fiocruz Hub team of The Global Health Network (TGHN Fiocruz) and other institutions. It explored the dynamic world of R programming and its applications in health data research.
The webinar was attended by the Research Manager Agklinta Kiosia from HDR Global's Data Science as moderator, the PhD student Aashna Uppal from University of Oxford, UK, the research assistant Md Sojibul Islam at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), the professor Soraida Aguilar at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio, Vacina Maré Pathfinder Project), Brazil, and the senior regional manager, Frank Kagoro, from TGHN at the University of Oxford, UK.
R is an open-source programming language used for data science interaction about data manipulation, analysis, and visualisation. The language is common in health areas because it is free. The webinar covered topics related to the capabilities and versatility that this programming brings in the pursuit of a diverse range of health research projects.