Announcing "Infectious Disease in East Africa: A Behavioral and Economic Research Collaborative (IDEA-BERC)"

​The EASST Collaborative is excited to announce that our program will be expanding with a 5-year training grant from the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to start the “Infectious Disease in East Africa: A Behavioral and Economic Research Collaborative (IDEA-BERC).” Falling under the EASST umbrella, IDEA-BERC will offer rigorous semester long training for 12-15 doctoral and post-doctoral East African researchers over the grant period.  Our partner institution, the African Population Health Research Center (APHRC), will conduct short-term training courses on the ground across East Africa.  Researchers trained through the program will enhance their skills in the scientific evaluation of interventions through coursework and mentored field research, with a specific focus on applying implementation science methods to infectious disease challenges. The IDEA-BERC training program will also provide extensive support to the trainees upon return to their East African institution, including distance mentoring by their US faculty mentor, meetings with their East Africa-based mentor, and access to research and training grants. Moreover, the program will provide trainees access to a valuable network of researchers at University of Nairobi, University of Rwanda, and Makerere University—additional partner institutions of IDEA-BERC.