This proposal requests funding for a Global Reseach Training in Population Health (GRTPH) program that links the University of Colorado Population Program and two outstanding research and training groups in sub-Saharan Africa - at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa (Wits) and the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya (APHRC). These two institutions each run longitudinal health and demographic studies, one rural, the other urban. The program is intended to address needs for trained demographers and population scientists in low- and middle-income countries who can be involved in the measurement, monitoring, and evaluation of central population health issues and who can conduct research that meets international standards on population health, migration, environment, and their interrelationships. It builds on the demonstrated strengths of each unit in carrying out multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in these areas and the commitment each has to training. It is based on continuing relationships among institutions, rather than single investigators. Specifically, it builds on the African Population Studies Research and Training Center at CU, a collaborative effort among these three institutions. The program currently consists of (1) a postdoctoral fellow partnership program; (2) intensive visits to CU by African trainees; (3) African student mentoring and involvement in collaborative research; (4) conference on training/curricula for programs based in African institutions; (5) an annual Colloquium in which all three groups participate; (6) small grants for pilot collaborative research; (7) grant preparation and administration assistance; (8) strong continuing institutional ties and senior faculty/ administrator involvement: and (9) ongoing collaborations across institutions emphasizing health, migration, and environment and their interconnections. To this existing program, the GRTPH program would add: (1) Postdoctoral fellowships open to African scholars with industrialized-country Ph.D.'s to return to one of the two partner institutions; (2) Fellowships for graduate students at Wits; (3) Internships for Wits graduate students at APHRC; and (4) Short courses at Wits and APHRC offered by APHRC senior staff and CU staff. This program is especially intended to increase research and training capacity at Wits and APHRC while it increases African research and collaborations at CU. Through continued interactions, training, and collaborative research, this network is well-positioned to contribute in powerful ways to expanding training opportunities of African junior investigators and cultivating current and forging new collaborative research and training relationships, aimed at contributing to fuller and better understanding and, ultimately, to improvement of African population health.
