First Days of Work

I've only had a day and a half of going into work but so far it's been great.  This week is a little abnormal because they are being audited by their funders, this happens at all research sites but it means that everyone is on their toes and the schedule is a little different.  It worked out well for me that I came this week because I got to listen to all of the presentations and get a good run through of how everything works and the research projects that are happening.  They have an ongoing Maternal and Newborn Health Registry project that registers all pregnancies in the clusters (regions for the study) and collects information on the birth outcome and survival of the mother in order to better understand the maternal and newborn mortality rates and also causes of mortality.  They are just finishing up an Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care (EmONC) study, this involves community mobilization and teaching birth attendants interventions and recognition of problems during pregnancy so the mother can be referred to a health facility.  They have another study starting up that will involve antenatal corticosteroids to help prevent respiratory disease in newborns and then they'll be doing the indoor air pollution study looking at health of mothers and newborns.

Today I worked more on my specific project.  I am using data that has already been collected from countries around the world and will look at if the infant mortality rate varies between homes using high versus low polluting cooking and heating fuels (I explain it more in the post "What I'll be working on").  This is for the upcoming indoor air pollution study.  There are people here very knowledgable in biostatistics and STATA and it was a huge relief to find that they are so willing to answer all of my questions.  I also talked with one of the researchers for a while about what I hope to learn while I'm here in addition to the project I am working on.  I explained how I'd really love to see the practical side of conducting health research.  I've learned for the past year about theories and study designs, but putting these things into practice is a whole different story.  He was great and told me that I'd be able to go into the field to see how things are done, the problems that arise, and how they go about problem-solving.  He also suggested I follow one of the clinicians at the government hospital.  I feel really lucky to have such a great opportunity to work with this group, they are obviously doing a lot to improve the health of mothers and children.