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I-TECH Supports the Mental Health of Healthcare Workers and People Living with HIV in Ukraine Amid War

Post categories: HIV Counseling and Testing Mental Health PrEP Ukraine
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                 Image by Денис Марчук

Since the Russian invasion and onset of full-scale war in 2022,  the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) has been strengthening its capacity to provide support for healthcare workers (HCWs) in Ukraine. Key support programming has included a mental health project targeting both HCWs and people living with HIV (PLHIV), delivered as part of its national Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Program.

The Ukrainian population is experiencing high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health disorders as a result of the war in Ukraine. One recent study found that 30.8% of its Ukrainian respondents met criteria for elevated risk of PTSD, with internally and externally displaced people showing significantly higher rates of risk.1 Another found that 52.7% of its Ukrainian sample aged 18 years or older showed symptoms of psychological distress, 46.8% of depression, and 12.1% of insomnia.2

“As time goes on, the greater the need for support for healthcare professionals becomes.”
– Olena Frolenkova, counselor

These numbers include not only the general population, but also the physicians, nurses, and other HCWs who continue supporting their fellow Ukrainians amid the war. These professionals put their own safety and mental health on the line every day to provide compassionate care to their communities in a time of immense crisis.

“Our medical doctors and nurses remain on the frontlines of the humanitarian responses, dealing with unimaginable loss and trauma daily, both professionally but also personally,” says Anna Shapoval, EdD, Country Representative for I-TECH Ukraine.

By mid-2024, the growing team of I-TECH counselors has conducted 325 planned individual online supportive supervision, including counseling, sessions for HCWs. Out of those, 45% of sessions were requested by HCWs due to a complex psychological and emotional condition. Key topics for supervision sessions were the psycho-emotional conditions of medical providers, discussions of actual working cases, management of complex consulting cases, and team interactions.

At the same time more than 3,500 PLHIV were screened for depression, out of them around 10% were diagnosed with such and referred for specialized care as part of this project. I-TECH’s team also invests significant time and resources into strengthening the counseling capacities of the HCWs and sharing information on the importance of mental health and related services available in each region of Ukraine among patients of its PrEP Program.

In recent months, the I-TECH team in Ukraine has expanded mental health program activities within its PrEP Program and hopes to continue this expansion through enhanced mental health education, counseling, and supervision for HCWs, focus on additional target groups such as military, veterans and their family members, and other related activities in 2025.

“The I-TECH Ukraine team is immensely grateful to its funders – the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) through the President’s Plan for Emergency AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in Ukraine – for their proactive position in regard to the mental health needs of HCWs, PLHIV, and PrEP patients in Ukraine,” says Ms. Shapoval. “As a result, since 2022 I-TECH Ukraine has received additional funding and guidance from its partners that have enabled immediate tailored response and development of the mental health programming that now represents a vital part of our daily activities in Ukraine.”

Ongoing expansion is critical, says Ms. Shapoval, to meet the increasing needs of both HCWs and their patients. Natalia Tiuleneva, lead mental health counselor with I-TECH, agrees: “Currently, medical specialists in Ukraine see a large number of patients who come to their appointment not only with somatic problems, but also with emotional flooding due to the war,” says Ms. Tiuleneva. “With each patient, the doctor experiences an individual patient war each time. This is a big mental burden…. Doctors complain of fatigue and the inability to process so much mental pain.

“It is important for us to save each other,” she continues. “It is important to protect highly qualified specialists. People are capable of a lot when they have a place where their resilience will be noticed and preserved. This culture of professional support in the medical community is promoted by our program, and it is slowly taking root.”

A couple of these examples are below.

A mother, a daughter, and their doctor make progress

A PrEP patient arrived at her doctor’s appointment with her 13-year-old daughter, who had been raped by her HIV-positive stepfather. While the offender was under investigation by the police, he continued to live in their shared housing. After testing, the girl was found to have HIV.

The doctor provided highly professional, compassionate support and consultation, but after the appointment she noted that her personal psychological condition had worsened, and she could not sleep at night. She contacted an I-TECH psychologist for help.

During the session, the psychologist led the doctor through a series of breathing and grounding exercises to lower her stress level. Afterward, she outlined recommendations to be shared with the patient and her mother:

  • To ensure the safety of the girl, she and her mother should end all contact with the offender and find another place to live.
  • The mother should contact a psychologist for her daughter that specializes in sexual trauma.

At a follow-up appointment a month later, the doctor, mother, and child worked together on assimilating the daughter’s experience, a therapeutic method that has shown to decrease the intensity of symptoms.3 As a result of the doctor’s interventions, as well as the help of other specialists, the child is now receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) and psychological counseling, and she and her mother were able to move to a shelter for survivors of violence.

“I am inspired by the strength in these stories. The power to be human, the power to help others, the power to overcome life’s challenges and trials, the power to become stronger.”
—Diana Martyniuk, counselor

For her part, the doctor’s sleep has improved, and her stress levels have decreased. “Finally, I can consult [the mother and child] as my regular patients,” she says.

Empathy leads to overload, and a request for help

During a scheduled session with an I-TECH psychologist, a doctor reported that she was in a difficult emotional state due to the stress of war. The doctor was worried because she often woke up at night with an accelerated heartbeat and a feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Often, she could not fall asleep for a long time and felt overall depressed.

She then mentioned a challenging case from her clinical practice that had been weighing on her heavily.

A 50-year-old patient of hers had been in serious condition with COVID-19. Every day, the doctor was tasked with telling the woman’s son, who served in the military, that his mother’s condition was getting worse. Over time, providing quality support and feeling compassion for the patient and her son had led to emotional overload and exhaustion for the doctor. When her patient died, the son’s grief—and even his gratitude toward her—compounded the doctor’s mental overwhelm.

To address these issues, the physician turned to the I-TECH psychologist again, requesting an additional session. After practicing self-regulation exercises shared during the session, the doctor reported that her sleep stabilized, her well-being improved, and her mood fluctuations decreased.

In a follow-up text to her counselor, the doctor reported: “I started working again, tomorrow it is going to be two weeks…. I completed the activities we discussed. I feel better. I have a different mood, I feel calmer.”

“During the hostilities in Ukraine, the burden on all doctors has increased,” says counselor Nadiya Bruyaka. “In addition to the increase in the number of patients and the severity of their personal stories, other challenges have been added that they had no experience with before: blackouts, Internet outages, air raids, distance learning of one’s own children and anxiety for them during air raids, the presence of relatives and friends in the Armed Forces and increased anxiety for their lives, feelings of uncertainty and helplessness.

“It’s all exhausting,” she continues, “and it is during sessions that doctors and nurses have the opportunity to share their personal condition, understand it, and get support and practical recommendations.”

 

1 Ben-Ezra M, Goodwin R, Leshem E & Hamama-Raz Y. (2023). PTSD symptoms among civilians being displaced inside and outside Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion. Psychiatry Res. 2023 Feb:320:115011. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2022.115011. Epub 2022 Dec 17.
2 Xu W, Pavlova I, Chen X, Petrytsa P, Graf-Vlachy L & Zhang SX. (2023). Mental health symptoms and coping strategies among Ukrainians during the Russia-Ukraine war in March 2022. Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2023 Jun;69(4):957-966. doi: 10.1177/00207640221143919. Epub 2023 Jan 4.
3 Basto IM, Stiles WB, Rijo D, and Salgado J. Does assimilation of problematic experiences predict a decrease in symptom intensity? Clin Psychol Psychother. 2018 Jan-Feb; 25(1): 76–84.

First Cohort of IDASH Fellowship Graduates

Post categories: Georgia IDASH One Health Peter Rabinowitz Surveillance Ukraine
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IDASH team members and graduating fellows

On April 19, the first 20 fellows of the Informatics and Data Science for Health (IDASH) program, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded Integrated Next-generation Surveillance in Global Health: Translation to Action (INSIGHT) project, successfully completed their fellowship and graduated at a ceremony hosted in Istanbul.

The event included a final in-person workshop and a certificate ceremony, celebrating 12 months of intensive learning and collaboration. The fellowship program included in-person workshops, mentorship, and communities of practice to support applied learning, as well as completion of capstone projects that aligned with respective countries’ health priorities.

“IDASH has been a novel training approach to bridge the gap between public health informatics and data science to improve population health,” says Jennifer Gilvydis, INSIGHT Project Director. “The fellowship is a unique blend of applied learning and supports multidisciplinary workforce development.”

The final workshop covered topics such as evaluating surveillance system performance, public health informatics communication, developing effective poster presentations, and maintaining connections with fellow program graduates. Fellows presented their capstone projects, showcasing the application of newly acquired  skills and knowledge.

Each interdisciplinary country team included members from Ministry of Health (MOH) units responsible for digital health and disease surveillance and response, such as mid-senior level epidemiologists, informaticians, data scientists, IT specialists, and public health policy personnel. This diverse mix of disciplines was integral to the fellows’ experience and the success of their capstone projects.

“What was unique [about this fellowship] was that this scholarship included the integration of systems as well as public health and technology,” says Nuraiym Zhumakunova, a fellow and epidemiologist with the Department of Disease Prevention and State Sanitary-Epidemiological Surveillance in Kyrgyzstan. Her team was working on a unified platform for disease surveillance data analysis.

“Overall, [the program] was good because we understood the work as analysts and as IT specialists,” she continues.

Stacey Lissit, Senior Technical Advisor for the IDASH fellowship, agrees that collaboration across disciplines was key to the program’s success: “The fact that IDASH brought together professionals from disciplines that may not typically collaborate and communicate with each other – public health/epidemiologist and IT/Data scientists – was an integral part of the fellowship,” she says. “It enabled fellows to get out of their silos and understand the priorities, needs, and ‘language’ of their colleagues, and see how communication and collaboration are so vital to achieving the desired public health outcomes. The relationships and community that was built among the fellows from different countries was an invaluable component of the program.”

The fellowship not only enriched the participating professionals but also had tangible benefits for their agencies and organizations. “We trained health workers on how to maintain quality data,” said Farhod Akbarov, First Deputy CEO at IT-Med LLC under the MOH of Uzbekistan, whose team was working on reporting, mapping, and forecasting of infectious disease. “These are already new skills for us. We can already filter, sort, and show better quality data.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, robust information systems that can collect, analyze, interpret, and act on high-quality data are critical to public health. The IDASH fellowship program aims to close knowledge gaps in the global public health workforce, better preparing regions for future health threats.

The fellowship program is set to launch in five countries in South America this June, expanding its reach and impact on global health initiatives.

Two Years of War in Ukraine: I-TECH and Healthcare System Resilience

Post categories: eLearning/Distance Learning Key Populations Lydia Chwastiak Mental Health PrEP Ukraine
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Alyona Ihnatiuk, Strategic Information Lead at I-TECH Ukraine, discusses the areas of active Russian hostilities and shelling in Ukraine.

A version of this piece was first posted on the University of Washington (UW) Department of Global Health’s (DGH) website. Article adapted and re-posted with permission.

On March 28, 2024, the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), the UW Behavioral Research Center for HIV (BIRCH), and the UW Department of Global Health (DGH), hosted a conversation with two critical members of the I-TECH Ukraine team, Oksana Danylenko, MD, MPMA, and Alyona Ihnatiuk, MPH.

During Two Years of War in Ukraine: I-TECH and Healthcare System Resilience, Dr. Danylenko and Ms. Ihnatiuk presented on the impact of the war on critical infrastructure and I-TECH’s activities in Ukraine to address the impacts, including new challenges, needs, and new service delivery models, as well as calling upon action and support.

Dr. Danylenko has 20+ years’ experience working in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, policy, and guidelines and serves as a Strategic Clinical Lead at I-TECH in Ukraine. Ms. Ihnatiuk is a Strategic Information Lead at I-TECH Ukraine, focusing on developing public health interventions, M&E system frameworks, data analysis, and program evaluation.

The session recording can be found on the DGH YouTube channel.

Related Resources

IDASH Fellowship Meets in Kazakhstan for In-Person, and Virtual, Workshop

Post categories: Global Health Security Health Systems Strengthening Human Resources for Health IDASH Peter Rabinowitz Surveillance Ukraine
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IDASH fellows engage in group work during an October workshop in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Photo credit: Jamey Gentry/CDC.

Last month, the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and with support from the World Health Organization (WHO), facilitated the second of three in-person workshops for the Informatics and Data Science for Health (IDASH) fellowship.

Held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the workshop marked the mid-point of the 12-month fellowship—and a chance for participants to come together to advance their ability to apply public health informatics and data science concepts and approaches.

“This workshop included a lot of hands-on practical exercises, and it was fun to observe how engaged the participants were with these activities and with the learning in general,” said Stacey Lissit, MPH, MS, Senior Technical Advisor for the IDASH program.

Content included all things data (quality, cleaning, analysis, visualization, governance, security, privacy, and confidentiality); interoperability; project management; business process analysis; and systems architecture. Sessions were a mix of didactic lecture, small group activities to practice application of skills and concepts, peer feedback, and guided hands-on learning in R and PowerBI. Over the course of the two weeks, participants collaborated  to develop a data dashboard, a database schema, and a data quality workplan.

The first cohort of the IDASH fellowship, with I-TECH instructors. Photo credit: Jamey Gentry/CDC.

The current fellowship, launched in April 2023, comprises a cohort of four participants each from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan—a total of 20 fellows. Each four-person team includes a mix of mid-senior level epidemiologists, informaticians, data scientists, IT, and public health policy personnel.

Fellow Zhanibek Yerubayev, Director of Public Health Emergency Operations at the Kazakhstan Ministry of Health’s National Center of Public Health, says the team mix is an integral part of IDASH’s impact. “[IDASH] connects people from the public health side with people from the IT side,” he says. “These people have a lot of projects to do [together], but they are not always well connected, and they do not always understand each other well.”

“It was exciting to see the relationships and community that are being built through the IDASH Fellowship – both within the country teams where fellows can collaborate closely with colleagues outside of their typical ‘work silos,’ and across countries within the region,” said Lissit. “That peer learning element is such an important part of the fellowship.”

And all efforts were made to ensure multi-directional collaboration. The Ukrainian team did not receive permission to travel to the workshop, so I-TECH made arrangements for them to participate via Zoom. A location was identified in southwest Ukraine where the team could  attend the workshop together remotely, experience fewer daily safety issues related to the war, and avoid the distractions of being in their own workplace. A simultaneous translator for the Ukrainian language was provided on the Zoom call.

While remote participation is not ideal, the Ukraine team was able to attend and hear most of the workshop sessions and engage in the group work in meaningful ways. “A lot of effort went into setting up the technology that enabled this participation,” said Lissit. “At one point the Ukraine team was participating in a peer feedback activity with two country teams in Almaty—there were live cameramen, screen sharing, Zoom translators…and it worked mostly seamlessly!”

Fellow Durbek Aliyev, Deputy CEO at IT-Med LLC, which works under the Uzbekistan Ministry of Health, was especially appreciative of the chance to learn from a wide range experts across the region. “The digitalization of health care cannot be done by only one country itself,” said Aliyev. “The advantage of IDASH over other programs is that it brings [together] specialists from neighbor countries. We are talking to each other….We are learning from each other directly.”

And these relationships will be a lasting benefit of the program, he continued. “IDASH is a place where we can establish very good networking with other countries,” said Aliyev. “Any time I can contact them and learn from their expertise.”

IDASH is a project within the Integrated Next-Generation Surveillance in Global Health: Translation to Action (INSIGHT) program. In addition to acquiring new skills and knowledge in public health informatics and data science, IDASH country teams are developing and will implement a collaborative team project that demonstrates key competencies and is aligned with their country’s needs and priorities.

 

 

 

New I-TECH Publication Shows Effectiveness of Index Testing Program in Ukraine

Post categories: HIV and STI Prevention HIV Counseling and Testing Implementation Science Index Testing/Partner Notification Ukraine Uncategorized
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Index testing is a is a key strategy to identify and support those most at risk of acquiring HIV.1 Within the index testing framework, exposed contacts (i.e., sexual partners, biological children and anyone with whom a needle was shared) of an HIV-positive person (i.e., index client), are elicited and offered HIV testing services.

From 2019 to 2021, the I-TECH team in Ukraine provided increased technical assistance for 39 state healthcare facilities in 11 high HIV-burden regions to advance assisted partner notification/services and index testing.

In a recently published study in BMJ Open, the I-TECH team—along with representatives from the Public Health Center at the Ukrainian Ministry of Health—describe the success of this scaled program in index testing.

“Index case testing is crucial in reaching out to exposed contacts of individuals living with HIV, notifying them, and offering HIV testing,” said Anna Shapoval, I-TECH Ukraine Country Representative. “This approach is particularly important and effective in the context of Ukrainian national HIV response where, despite numerous successes, we still struggle to close HIV testing gap and reach out to people living with HIV earlier rather than later with proper treatment and support.”

I-TECH developed exhaustive standard operating procedures for index testing; thoroughly trained healthcare teams on the index testing algorithm; as well as provided consistent and regular methodological support as part of its index testing program.

The study includes clients enrolled in index testing services in 2020, who had with both recent (<6 months) and previously established (≥6 months) HIV diagnoses. Ukraine’s physician-led model involves a cascade of steps including voluntary informed consent, partner elicitation, selection of partner notification method and follow-up with clients to ensure partners are notified, tested for HIV, and linked to HIV prevention and treatment services, as needed.

“Ukraine’s index testing services were rolled out as a standard part of Ukraine’s HIV service package at the targeted governmental health facilities, and carried out by existing physicians,” said Alyona Ihnatiuk, Strategic Information Lead for I-TECH Ukraine and lead author of the study. “At each supported facility, one or two staff members were designated as focal persons for case management and follow-up. This integrated, physician-led model was streamlined to target index cases with both recent and established HIV diagnosis, to arrive at a high number of new cases of HIV identified.”

There were 976 new cases of HIV identified through the study period, representing a yield of 19.3%, and 1,408 people living with HIV (PLHIV) have been identified throughout the two-year index testing program.

Of 14,525 index clients offered index testing, 51.9% accepted, of whom 98.3% named at least one sexual partner, injection partner, or biological child. Clients named 8,448 unique partners; HIV case finding was highest among clients with recent HIV diagnosis and among people who inject drugs (PWID), and lower among clients with established HIV diagnosis. More than 90% of all partners with new HIV diagnoses were linked to care.

“The BMJ Open study confirms that comprehensive assisted partner notification services and index testing are highly effective in identifying people living with HIV,” says Ms. Shapoval, “as well as tracing previously diagnosed partners and supporting their linkage to care. I-TECH was honored to contribute to the design and implementation of this vital intervention in Ukraine early on and see it gradually rolled out across the country with multiple partners successfully implementing it now.”

  1. Golden M, et al. Partner notification for sexually transmitted infections including HIV infection: an evidence-based assessment. Sexually transmitted diseases. 4th edn. McGraw-Hill; New York, NY: 2007.

THIS PROJECT IS SUPPORTED BY THE HEALTH RESOURCES AND SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (HRSA) OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (HHS) UNDER U91HA06801, THE INTERNATIONAL AIDS EDUCATION AND TRAINING CENTER (IAETC). THE CONTENT OF THIS POST IS THE AUTHOR’S AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS THE OFFICIAL POSITION OR POLICY OF, NOR SHOULD ANY ENDORSEMENTS BE INFERRED BY HRSA, HHS OR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.

INSIGHT Project: Strengthening Public Health Disease Surveillance

Post categories: Alex Greninger Global Health Security Julianne Meisner One Health Peru Peter Rabinowitz Surveillance Ukraine
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The Integrated Next-generation Surveillance in Global Health: Translation to Action (INSIGHT to Action) project is a five-year cooperative agreement with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess and strengthen global public health surveillance systems using a One Health approach. The INSIGHT project leverages the capacity building strengths of I-TECH and the One Health disease surveillance expertise of the Center for One Health Research, with a model of engaging local institutions and experts in countries where it will be working in a shared partnership model.

In its first year, the INSIGHT project focused on an in depth assessment of the public health surveillance systems in Peru, in partnership with experts from University of Peru Cayetano Heredia. The completed assessment has now catalyzed the formation of a technical working group with representation across multiple government agencies that will work with other stakeholders including the World Bank at implementing measures to strengthen regional and country capacity to detect, respond to, control, and prevent emerging disease threats to health security.

The INSIGHT surveillance work in Latin America is also now expanding to involve Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia.

IDASH TRAINING PROGRAM

In 2023, the INSIGHT program launched the Informatics and Data Science for Health (IDASH) training program in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The goals of IDASH are to enhance capacity to create and use public health information systems that enable the capture, management, analysis, dissemination, and use of reliable, timely information to improve population-level health outcomes, as well as strengthen regional capacity to effectively respond to future global health challenges.

UKRAINE RECOVERY

Building on lessons learned from the Peru assessment work, the INSIGHT team is now working with the Ukraine Public Health Center on expanding sentinel and event based surveillance systems in Ukraine and strengthening the capacity of the public health system for emergency management of chemical biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. The INSIGHT team has organized a workshop in Poland bringing together key principals from the Ukraine ministry of health and local health departments to accelerate the pace of activities in support of public health in the country. INSIGHT is coordinating technical working groups on Early Warning and Response, Public Health Emergency Management, and Surveillance strengthening.

I-TECH Ukraine Team Partners with Shelter for Women and Girls

Post categories: Gender/Women & Girls Pamela Collins Ukraine
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Thanks to new generators, the Rehabilitation Shelter had electricity, heat, and Internet connection during massive shelling in Ukraine in fall and winter 2022-2023.

In February 2022, at the advent of the war in Ukraine, the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) launched the I-TECH Humanitarian Fund to support the work of our team in Ukraine. Many team members remain displaced, away from their homes, and isolated from their families and friends. However, their tireless work continues provide uninterrupted access and services to Ukrainians living with HIV, who are more in need of care and refuge than ever.

Supported by generous donations to the I-TECH Humanitarian Fund, I-TECH Ukraine has been able to advance the work of Eleos-Ukraine, a network of like-minded people and organizations that develop social services through 13 regional offices throughout Ukraine. The common goal of Eleos-Ukraine partners is to feed, clothe, and protect 1 million people in need.

“The compassion and solidarity of our American colleagues and friends with Ukraine and Ukrainians, including those expressed through generous donations to the I-TECH’s Humanitarian Fund just in the first few weeks of the full-scale war, are overwhelmingly moving,” said Anna Shapoval, I-TECH’s Country Representative in Ukraine. “We are eternally grateful.”

To date, the I-TECH Humanitarian Fund has been directed to Eleos’ critical work on behalf of Ukrainian women and girls subjected to sexual violence and other trauma (e.g., incarceration and torture) by the Russian army, notably the development and establishment of the Rehabilitation Shelter in August 2022.

Money from the fund has gone directly to outfitting the shelter with video surveillance, fire alarms, and powerful generators. Thanks to the generators, the shelter had electricity, heat, and internet connection during massive shelling by the Russian Federation in fall and winter 2022-2023.

“We appreciate your cooperation and thank you for helping the citizens of Ukraine during the war,” wrote Eleos-Ukraine Board Chair Serhii Dmytriyev, in a thank you letter to I-TECH Humanitarian Fund donors. “Our joint humanitarian project will help women not just today, at this time of crisis; it will also be important in reducing the consequences of war – which makes it an important contribution to the future of Ukraine!”

Since the shelter opened, more than 150 women from Kyiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Luhansk Oblasts have received help remotely and within the shelter. The duration of a stay in the shelter for one client varies from one to six months and can be extended. The shelter houses 15-20 women and girls as well as their families, with accommodation for up to 30 people.

“Eleos-Ukraine is a truly passionate and efficient organization. They have been at the forefront of response to this war since 2014, the actual start of the Russian invasion,” said Ms. Shapoval. “Eleos put their minds and souls into supporting Ukrainian women and girls, and other civilians, who have suffered from horrifying violence and deprivation daily. They will continue helping people of Ukraine, no matter what – and so, I hope, we as I-TECH will continue supporting groups like Eleos on the ground.”

I-TECH Executive Director Pamela Collins lauded both the Ukraine team’s work with Eleos and those who have contributed generously to the I-TECH Humanitarian Fund. “I am very proud of I-TECH Ukraine’s activities with Eleos to respond to the humanitarian emergency in Ukraine,” said Dr. Collins. “Thanks to our donors, we had the resources to do what I-TECH does well: identify and collaborate with strong partners in the countries where we work to meet urgent needs in a times of crisis.”

 

IDASH Program Launches for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region

Post categories: Global Health Security Health Information Systems IDASH One Health Surveillance Ukraine
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Participants gather for group discussion during the first IDASH in-person workshop in Tbilisi, Georgia. Photo credit: CDC/EECA

On April 3, the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) launched the Informatics and Data Science for Health (IDASH) fellowship training program with an in-person workshop in Tbilisi, Georgia. The program launched in partnership with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CDC/EECA) Regional Office, the World Health Organization (WHO) Europe, and country governments.

The first IDASH cohort includes 20 fellows from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Participants include mid- to senior-level technical, analytical, and public health staff working at the national level in public health informatics or data science.

“After several whirlwind months of collaboration and engagement with stakeholders from the five countries, it’s amazing to welcome the first cohort of IDASH to Tbilisi for the first of three in-person workshops,” said Stacey Lissit, MPH, MS, Senior Technical Advisor for the IDASH program.

Fellows will participate in a 12-month in-service training program, in which each country team of four fellows will identify and develop a collaborative project. Fellows will receive sustained mentorship, and regional communities of practice will be established to ensure regional collaboration, share lessons learned and best practices, and establish linkages for future programming needs that span multiple countries.

“IDASH provides the opportunity to link learning to experience, and enables the application of new public health skills, knowledge, and techniques acquired from the training in a real-life context,” said Peter Rabinowitz, MD, MPH, Principal Investigator for the IDASH project. “It also extends benefits beyond the trainees to partner agencies and organizations, helping strengthen public health capacity in the region.”

Proposed fellowship projects include automating data analysis and visualization for diseases, expanding digital immunization registries beyond COVID-19, and developing spatial analysis modules for multi-disease surveillance and response.

“Today, the afternoon of the 4th day, the room is buzzing as the five country teams are hard at work: two engrossed in consultation with our facilitation team of public health informatics and data science experts about their country team projects; the others working on a data science methods exercise, practicing interpretation of descriptive and inferential statistics plots to assess trends in Hepatitis C,” said Ms. Lissit. “The energy and engagement have been high, and we’re looking forward to the next six days and the rest of the year-long fellowship.”

IDASH goals are to enhance capacity to create and use public health information systems that enable the capture, management, analysis, dissemination, and use of reliable, timely information to improve population-level health outcomes, as well as strengthen regional capacity to effectively respond to future global health challenges and pandemics.

“The COVID-19 pandemic made clear the importance of public health data systems that provide real time, accurate data on disease threats to allow for timely intervention and combatting of mis- and disinformation,” said Dr. Rabinowitz. “Programs like IDASH will help ensure there is a workforce prepared to detect, prevent, and respond to future global health threats.”

Story updated: April 11, 2023

I-TECH Attends IAS 24th International AIDS Conference

Post categories: Cote d'Ivoire India Malawi Tanzania Ukraine Zimbabwe
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Members of the I-TECH Partner Network attend the IAS AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada 29 July through 2 August 2022. L-R: Abhina Aher (I-TECH India), Fernanda Freistadt (I-TECH), Pamela Collins (I-TECH), Blessing Mushwange (Zim-TTECH), Precious Moyo (PZAT), Yao He (I-TECH). Photo Credit: I-TECH

The International AIDS Society (IAS) hosted the 24th International AIDS Conference on 29 July – 2 August 2022 in Montreal, Canada, and virtually. The theme this year was “re-engage and follow the science” to highlight that the HIV and AIDS epidemics are not over and still require significant global support. The conference brings together HIV researchers and experts for presentations and discussions on a wide-range of HIV- and AIDS-related topics.

This year, the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) and its partner network organizations participated in a number of activities at the IAS International AIDS Conference. Pamela Collins, MD, MPH, I-TECH Executive Director, participated in a pre-conference meeting panel on HIV and non-communicable disease integration hosted by the NCD Alliance. Dr. Collins’ discussion focused on the social stigma related to HIV and mental health conditions, specifically the impact stigma has on care and the role that integration has in addressing stigma.

In addition to the panel, I-TECH representatives also presented posters from programs in Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, and Ukraine:

Additionally, representatives from I-TECH’s partner network organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) presented findings from I-TECH-supported programs in India, Malawi, and Zimbabwe: