Data collection and research training in Uganda

Amy Hagopian, acting on behalf of Capacity Project (Uganda) and supported by HRSA, organized two workshops for young researchers in Uganda (8/4/06 and 9/20/06), and intends to offer a third workshop in January (2007). She worked with Aga Khan nursing instructor Wesley Too as a collaborator. Participants included members of the field teams who collected data for the retention study--primarily junior and senior faculty at Aga Khan, students at Makerere University and Ministry of Health staff. The goals of the first workshops were to both orient participants to the concepts of data analysis, including the importance of study questions and an analysis plan and to understanding independent and dependent variables, frequency analysis, cross-tabs, means tests, and variable transformation. The workshops included discussion of the Health Workforce Advisory Board's (HWAB) data user agreement application that Amy helped the HWAB develop. Handouts included the data dictionary, the project analysis plan, and the data user agreement application form. The workshops attracted about 15 persons each time, and took place at the Ministry of Health Resource Center. Participants were very enthusiastic about the opportunity to learn new skills while getting to work with data they actually assisted in collecting.