Small Grant Capacity Building Call for Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) Sites at African Population And Health Research Center (APHRC)

• The Implementation Network for Sharing Population Information from Research Entities (INSPIRE) network aims to create a population-based health data sharing infrastructure, and an environment where data can be used effectively for decision making. INSPIRE brings together Longitudinal Population Cohorts Africa with a goal of producing Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data that can be used by researchers and policy makers by capacitating data users with skills and tools for appropriately using the shared data and metadata.
• The INSPIRE Learning Health System (LHS) project aims to improve data use and analytical capacity for multiple sources of population health data to optimise public health response to infectious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. The LHS comprises an organisational architecture that supports the formation of communities of data scientists, healthcare professionals, and policy makers, collaborating to explore large data collated from Longitudinal Population Cohorts to inform country-level decision making and planning.

Through the LHS project, we welcome applications from HDSS sites and LPCs that would like to build a niche or innovate within their sites. We are particularly interested in proposals that are;

• Technologically innovative
• Scalable, replicable and sustainable
• Community driven and inclusive

The funding may be used to implement the following ideas, among others;

• Strengthening HDSS data linkage- to facilitate linking individuals’ HDSS records to their clinic records at health facilities in the demographic surveillance area.
• Evidence generation and sharing- to facilitate analysis of site-specific data or development of data visualization tools or evidence products that describe population health trends within the DSA.
• Capacity building- to enhance/promote staff capacity in data analysis and visualization.
• Development of Data governance framework and tools.
• Policy engagement practices – develop advocacy tools, promotional activities and forums for site-specific activities.
• Strengthening HDSS surveillance systems
• Contribution to strategic data collection in the HDSS- domains can include mental health, climate adaptation, and climate mitigation among others.
• The maximum available budget is $60,000 which will be equally split to the four most promising ideas/sites
• Please submit maximum of two-page concept note, including a work plan, a budget and deliverables. The ideas should be implemented within a period of