In 2014, the Hampshire Collaboration for Health Research and Education was developed, which is a joint research collaboration between the University of Winchester and Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. This local partnership enables us develop joint programmes of work and aims to increase research and education opportunities for both Hampshire Hospitals staff and university academic departments.
To develop and deliver research projects collaboratively across the globe, we're launching this global health research space.
The Winchester Centre for Global Health is the University's dynamic hub of academics and researchers who work together to contribute towards the University's aim to tackle global challenges through its research-related activity and teaching.
The Centre has three key focus points:
- Exploration of the scope, importance and nature of practice in global health
- Collaboration in and support of networks, the participants of which are engaged in or have oversight of global health activity, in low- and middle- income countries
- Creation of robust methodologies for the evaluation of the impact of global health sustainable projects
Are you a member of staff at Hampshire Hospitals or University of Winchester wanting to get involved in a global health research project?
To help address the diverse healthcare needs of those across the globe, we're looking to undertake more global health research.
If you want to undertake research with countries across the globe and have a global health research question, or you want to find out more about how you can start being involved in global health research, get in touch.
Contact:
Hampshire Hospitals research and development team at research.team@hhft.nhs.uk.
Our research projects
The Kintampo Project in Ghana: sustainability in mental health and wellbeing
Started in May 2021, The Kintampo Project (as the work was coined, being where the college was based in a large town of that name in the middle of Ghana) was a large-scale innovation designed specifically to help develop a new generation of mental health workers in Ghana, unique to the country and specific to its mental health needs, who would work mainly in the community.
As part of this work, a research partnership was developed between the University of Winchester and researchers at the University of Dodoma, Ghana to evaluate the Kintampo project. This evaluation allowed for the Ghanaians involved in this global health partnership to construct their own narrative about the partnership. Additionally, the Ghanaian narrative was intended to provide significant learning for the work of future global health partnerships and particularly as a response to the current situation and possibly a post pandemic world, sensitive to climate change and the imperative to reduce our carbon footprint.
Between when the project began in May 2021, and when the project was completed in February 2022, all work within the partnership took place completely virtually (with the exception of the in-person interviews undertaken by the Ghanaian team in Ghana).
Our key highlights
- Exchanging qualitative research knowledge between a UK university and a Ghanaian university.
- Data collection and analysis being led by local partners: Ghanaian researchers obtaining the perspectives of locals involved in the Kintampo project through conducting 19 interviews.
- Collaboration between the UK and Ghana partners to create an interview guide and to write a journal article based on the findings of the research project.
- Collaboration between the Ghanaian partners and researchers in Tanzania to build research capacity and share learning about national innovations.
- Perspectives from Ghanian individuals involved in the Kintampo project will allow for comparison with those obtained of UK individuals (Locke et al, 2020).
- Publication led by Ghanaian researchers (Agyekum et al submitted, 2022)
Findings from the evaluation highlighted that the Kintampo Project’s effects are still happening with capacity continuing to grow – programmes are running, students are studying, graduates are graduating and entering the country’s mental health workforce.
For more information on the project, please contact Rachel.Locke@winchester.ac.uk
Upcoming project: Palliative care research in Ghana
This is a scoping research project to document the current state of palliative care in Ghana which currently involves limited and localised provision. However, national Ghanian Government direction, led by Dr. Edwina Addo Opare-Lokko, is driving national policy towards state provision of palliative care.
So far, members of the project team have had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Addo and collaborate on future plans to build hospices across Ghana, providing expertise from project management, knowledge exchange to evaluation. This scoping project would involve a data gathering visit to potentially inform Ghanian national policy as well as building a range of opportunities for collaboration for HHFT on staff rotations, and for University of Winchester on student placements and consultancy. From this, all would benefit from building a knowledge exchange relationship on best practice in palliative care.
The project would involve three Hampshire Hospitals team members travelling to Ghana, with the University of Winchester designing and guiding data collection and analysis. This would support palliative care policy development, research of current practices and support a future nursing and knowledge exchange programme.
Our proposed timeline would enable our team to visit in July 2022, then produce related academic work during 2022/23.
