Research

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Overview

With emerging and re-emerging diseases, development of antimicrobial resistance, globalization and climate change impact, the need for multidisciplinary research to address complex health and environmental challenges is greater than before. The One Health approach to research ensures that research questions address challenges at the human, animal and environmental interface including zoonotic diseases, animals as sentinels for environmental health hazards, occupational health for animal workers, antimicrobial resistance, food safety and clinical collaboration between human and animal health workers using an integrated approach.

Research is a process which involves generating information to make evidence-based decisions. There is a wide allay of other sources of information that individuals rely on to make decisions, such as cultural norms, media, expert opinions and even mentors’ counsel. However, research- generated information differs significantly from information generated from these other sources in that, research information is objective and reproducible with fairly similar results under similar circumstances. And this is what underpins the evidence based on research-generated information. Such evidence is a product of a multiplicity of factors and consequently, there is no one profession or discipline that can claim dominance or sole ownership of such a domain.

It is for this reason that the One Health approach to embracing a wide cross-section of disciplines is the only plausible way of conducting research that will bring forth evidence of the true and reliable situation on the ground. This module is therefore designed to introduce the principles of conducting multi-disciplinary research to generate information about disease outbreaks, monitoring the outbreaks to control them, and at the same time, design predictive measures to prevent new occurrences. All this will be done in the context of collaboration among multiple disciplines in a complex environment comprising the health of human, animal and ecosystem. This will focus on how to generate relevant information for practical application in One Health, how to disseminate research outputs and how to develop writing skills to attract research grants.

This module also recognizes the fact that men and women have different roles and perspectives that may impact differently on research outcomes. Therefore, the module aims at integrating a gender perspective that will not only improve the relevance, coverage and quality of the research but also promote gender equality and equity. This will require developing gender- sensitive and responsive research methodologies that fully integrate gender into research design, implementation and evaluation.