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UCSF Global Programs for Research & Training

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Kenya - What we do

Under the direction of Koki Kinagwi, the Global Programs Office—Kenya works with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researchers and their in-country partners, either as project staff or in supporting the administration of research and training projects.

Capacity Building and Training

We support Kenya National AIDS and STI Control Programme (NASCOP) and other HIV program partners in equipping health service providers with the capacity to improve Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) for HIV programs at national, county and sub-county levels.

At the health facility level, Global Programs has led the development and delivery of short courses around:

understanding documentation requirements
identifying data gaps
collecting and analyzing technically sound data
using that data to improve program planning and decision making

The first two courses, HIV M&E Tools and Cohort Analysis, have been offered as five-day face-to-face short course workshops. To date, the HIV M&E Tools course has reached more than 1,500 health service providers in 14 counties in Kenya through these face-to-face training sessions.

We also are leading the effort to develop e-learning solutions for capacity building initiatives as a means of expanding the reach and coverage of NASCOP’s courses.

HIV Strategic Information Capacity Building

Our team partners with public health experts and fosters capacity development through tailored interventions, protocols and tools for implementation, data analysis and dissemination of findings.

eLearning Program

The eLearning platform, developed on the open source Moodle Learning Management System (LMS), is hosted at the University of Nairobi eLearning portal. The platform features an attractive and creative, course instructional design, a robust help desk and learner support mechanism. The National HIV M&E tools training course, the first course deployed on the LMS, is a mix of text and video-based content, interactive case scenarios, practice sessions, live chat rooms tutorials and in-course discussion forums. The learner support mechanisms include an integrated and automated Short Messaging Service (SMS)and emails with important reminders, announcements and course milestone achievements as well as a cloud-hosted open source ticketing system that individual learners can use to submit questions and receive a response from the support team.

More than 5,300 health care workers have enrolled in the online HIV M&E tools training course in 2018. The course takes 45 days of learning and the completion rate is currently at 50%. The transition to eLearning has expanded the uptake and coverage of the NASCOP courses, and we are currently converting the HEI and ART cohort analysis course into eLearning modules.

Learn more and enroll in the online courses.

HIV Care and Treatment

Accelerating Children’s HIV Treatment

In partnership with President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), we are supporting a two-year initiative to double the number of children receiving life-saving antiretroviral treatment in sub-Saharan Africa.

Strategic Information

We offer technical assistance on generating and using strategic information for HIV prevention and control in Kenya by building sustainable strategic information platforms and capacities in areas including:

Adaptive Strategies for Treating Lapses of Retention in Care (ADAPT-R)

This project aims to determine the best interventions to retain patients in care for HIV.

Epidemiologic Surveillance

Our staff in involved in design, implementation, analysis and reporting or regional and national surveys. Our activities include household surveys, population size estimation, probability-based epidemiological studies among key and priority populations, HIV case reporting systems enhancements.

Report: Mortuary and Hospital-Based Surveillance of HIV-Associated Mortality in Kisumu County

Health Informatics

We have local Health Information Systems (HIS) professionals on staff with expertise in software development; server administration; open source technologies used in the health sector; systems design, development, testing and implementation; and user training. We hire local professionals with expertise in software development; database management; popular open source health information systems such as DHIS2, OpenMRS and ODK; data analysis, visualization, reporting and business intelligence systems; app development for Android and iOS; dashboard development; and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping to design, develop, implement, and use health information systems at national and sub-national levels.

Program Monitoring and Evaluation

Our work with NASCOP helps strengthen the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems for HIV programs. Current activities include improving the quality of program data, revising M&E tools, building M&E capacity of the Ministry of Health staff and analyzing programmatic data.

Operational Support for Research

As a registered office, we can lease office space, apply for work permits, wire money and much more. By working with us, researchers have more flexibility and time to focus on their projects.

Administrative support also includes paying vendors and travel expenses, procuring supplies, providing office space for staff, managing local transportation, and hiring local short-term and programmatic employees. We currently provide administrative support to these projects:

Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES)

FACES provides and strengthen comprehensive, coordinated and compassionate health care services to HIV-affected families in Kisumu county.

Gender-based violence and HIV outcomes

This project aims to conduct longitudinal analysis of gender-based violence, HIV outcomes and mental health mediators in a cohort study of HIV-infected women in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mobility in SEARCH

This study examines the impact of population mobility on sexual mixing patterns and HIV care cascade outcomes in East African communities.

Perceived Quality of Care during Childbirth

This project's goal is to understand community perceptions of quality of care during childbirth, focusing on person-centered maternity care (PCMC) in Migori County, Kenya.