DIRECT: Enhancing Bioethics Capacities at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS)

About This Grant

NIH/Fogarty International Research Ethics Education and Curriculum Development Award (R25): DIRECT: Enhancing Bioethics Capacities at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS) ABSTRACT/PROGRAM SUMMARY The overarching goal of our Developing Research Ethics Education and Curriculum Development Award (DIRECT) is to collaboratively strengthen bioethics capacities at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS) in Malawi through the development of a comprehensive and locally administered Masters-level educational program targeting students and professionals in allied health, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, biomedical research and other health-related disciplines. This new program will build on current bioethics modules in the KUHeS flagship MPH program. The curriculum will focus on the broad development of analytic skills related to the ethics of implementation research health in resource-constrained settings, including associated ethical issues in clinical care and public health practice. To ensure local relevance, the design and content of the program’s educational modules will be collaboratively developed through Malawi-based curriculum development workshops involving local collaborators, health professionals and practitioners, policy-makers and students. An innovative feature of this program will be a focus on the neglected issue of bioethics in mental health research, policy and practice, to be developed in collaboration with the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at KUHeS. This program will be reinforced and complemented by the supplementary aims of developing policy recommendations for mental health research in sub-Saharan Africa, strengthening bioethics teaching capacities of local faculty and former program students, publishing a casebook of bioethics case-studies developed through the program, and disseminating bioethics and research ethics news through a KUHeS Bioethics newsletter. We believe that a comprehensive and collaboratively developed bioethics educational program, built on longstanding partnerships between the leading Malawian health institutions and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, will have a substantial impact on students, their future institutions, and the culture of health research in the region.