Delayed

I was ready to go!

but Irene had other plans..

Not surprisingly, my flights were cancelled yesterday. It looks like the earliest I'll be able to leave now is Tuesday. The picture above is from a second floor window at my parent's house in Hanover. The storm hasn't been as bad here as it was at other points coming up the east coast but it still managed to take down a decent size tree in the front yard. Hope everyone is staying safe!

Nagpur - City of Oranges

Nagpur is a large city by my standards but so-so by Indian standards, just a measly 4.5 million.It’s located in the eastern part of Maharashtra state – Mumbai is in the western part of the state if that gives you a marker, and if that doesn't help at all I put a map at the bottom of the post. Nagpur is fairly central within India both east to west and north to south. Here’s what I’ve found out about it so far: it is the city of oranges, it has a tiger reservation and nature reserve close by, it has multiple colleges/universities so it draws students from other parts of India, I've also read that it draws middle class retirees - interesting mix there, it contains the zero mile marker of India, the weather is good by my standards although I’ll catch the tail end of monsoon season (for the time I’ll be there the average low is in the 60s and average high in the 80s.. this is their winter and they advise bringing winter clothes which confuses me), there are loads of festivals (this isn’t specific to Nagpur but is true of India in general from what I’ve read), and it is one of the cleanest and greenest – I’m pretty sure meaning actual foliage, not recycling but I'll report back on this – cities in India! It’s not a touristy city so I’m thinking I’ll stand out more being white in Nagpur than I would if I were in Mumbai or New Delhi where westerners are everywhere. I think this is a good thing and a bad thing. My cousin Sarah who spent a year in India warned me that people will probably stare, which will be a little weird – I feel like that would make me really self-conscious or make me think that I’m doing something wrong. But I think it will be really great to be in a non-tourist area because Sarah also said she found everyone to be very friendly and helpful whereas maybe this isn’t as true in places overrun with tourists. Sarah (you didn’t know you’d become a celebrity in my blog did you??) spent a year in Bangalore and has been giving me great advice on what to expect when I arrive, what to pack, some cultural norms – like never hand anything to anyone with your left hand it’s a sign of disrespect, and other pointers. It’s been great to have her as a guide as I’ve been getting ready to go over!

It’ll be interesting to see how my impressions of Nagpur and India in general from what I’ve read online and in my guidebook will match up to how it really is. I’ll be doing last minute preparations tomorrow and then flying out on Saturday if hurricane Irene doesn’t interfere. It’s a 15 hour flight from Newark to Mumbai then another hour flight the following morning to Nagpur, plus a 9.5 hour time change... here goes!

What I'll be working on

The project I am working on is investigating indoor air pollution (iap) and its effects on neonatal mortality. Iap comes mostly from cooking and heating fuel. In low-resource areas of the world most households use solid fuels (things like straw, animal dung, agricultural residues, coal, etc.) to cook with and heat their homes, causing a lot of pollution compared to using gas or electricity. On top of that, many homes don’t have great (or any) ventilation and may not have a separate room for cooking. Other studies have already linked iap from solid fuels to poor health outcomes including lung cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and more. We’re looking at neonatal mortality because women, who are responsible for most domestic responsibilities, and young children, who generally stay with their mothers, spend the most time inside and so they are at greater risk. The group that I'm working with did a research paper on this topic looking at data from India and now I'll be expanding what they did to include other countries as well.

I’m really excited about my practicum, the people I am working with are very intelligent and have a lot of experience so I know I'll learn a lot. Hopefully what we find out will add to the knowledge base already out there on the topic and help to inform programs and policies that aim to lower the high neonatal mortality rates in developing regions. And if not then at the very least I'll be a whole lot better at using Stata (a statistical software package I'm using to analyze the data), somehow this just doesn't have the same ring to it though..

Finding a Practicum

Welcome to my first blog! I decided to start a blog to document my time in India and to keep friends and family updated while I’m away. I am working on my masters in public health at Boston University, concentrating in international health. I would like to work in global maternal and child health when I graduate so when I was looking for a practicum (part of the degree where students work) I knew I wanted it to be international and focused on MCH issues.

Why India? I’ve been getting that question a lot. I didn’t have my heart set on any one place in particular that I wanted to go. When I started looking for a practicum I looked for an organization that focuses on child health in developing countries in general. I was given a fantastic opportunity to work with the Massachusetts General Hospital, Division of Global Health. This group is a team of researchers who aim to find scientifically valid methods for improving the health of children that can be used in low resource areas. They collaborate with a research team at the government hospital in Nagpur, India on multiple projects, so India it is!

I leave for Nagpur in two days and come back at the end of December. I'm sure that my life for the next four months will be very different from what I'm used - I'm looking forward to learning a lot and putting my public health training into practice, and sharing my journey with all of you!