Dr. Melissa Bauserman, Associate Professor of Pediatrics in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, and her team recently received notice of renewal for the funding in support of the University of North Carolina-Kinshasa School of Public Health Research Partnership in the Democratic Republic of Congo; a Model for Improving Women’s and Children’s Health Through Research. The total award is for over $3 million: approximately $500,000 per year for 7 years. This is a renewal of UNC as a research site for the NICHD Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research project. For this ongoing research, UNC is in partnership with the Kinshasa School of Public Health.
Since 2016, Dr. Bauserman and colleagues with the UNC-Kinshasa School of Public Health (Democratic Republic of Congo) Research Partnership have completed more than 20 research studies sponsored by the NIH, WHO, Thrasher Pediatric Research Fund, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and other agencies. The NICHD Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research, is a group of 8 research dyads that conduct clinical trials with the goal of evaluating low-cost, sustainable interventions to improve maternal and child health. Each research dyad consists of a US site partnered with a site in a low to low-middle income country (Guatemala, Kenya, DRC, Zambia, Pakistan, India (2 sites) and Bangladesh). UNC Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine has enjoyed a long and fruitful partnership with the Kinshasa School of Public Health in the Democratic Republic of Congo and together and has been a part of the Global Network for more than 15 years. Congratulations!