COHESION Core Values and Guiding Principles
A Focus on the Most Vulnerable
Health Systems Strengthening
Mutual Learning
Robust Design and Evaluation of Complex Interventions
A Focus on the Most Vulnerable
Focusing on NCDs and NTDs gives us the opportunity to work with some of the most vulnerable populations. Our work will find effective ways to address needs and improvements in both NCD and NTD health care delivery, and not one over the other.
Health Systems Strengthening
Our project moves away from vertical healthcare delivery programs and contributes to health systems strengthening initiatives, focused on interventions that will be sustained and scaled up.
Mutual Learning
The diversity of settings, conditions and needs in many countries, and even scenarios within countries, will be embraced as opportunities for mutual learning. Innovative ways to address schistosomiasis and diabetes in Mozambique can inform leprosy and hypertension in Nepal and Chagas disease and chronic comorbidities in Peru.
Robust Design and Evaluation of
Complex Interventions
The world is moving beyond linear causality activity effect type of projects and we embrace the complexity of scenarios. We move towards implementation science in actively testing what works, for whom, under what scenarios in complex situations.
NCDs & NTDs
NCDs
Non-Communicable Diseases
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases, are not passed from person to person. They are of long duration and generally slow progression. The four main types of noncommunicable diseases are cardiovascular diseases (like heart attacks and stroke), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructed pulmonary disease and asthma) and diabetes.
Source: http://www.who.int/topics/noncommunicable_diseases/en/
NTDs
Neglected Tropical Diseases
Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), encompass all diseases that occur solely, or principally, in the tropics. In practice, the term is often taken to refer to infectious diseases that thrive in hot, humid conditions, such as malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, Chagas disease, African trypanosomiasis, and dengue.
The COHESION project focuses on:
NCDs: diabetes and hypertension.
This is due to the high burden of these conditions and the importance of PHC and community disease management.
NTDs: Schistosomiasis (Mozambique), Neurocysticercosis (Peru), and Leprosy (Nepal), highlight distinctive elements of the health system and link back to the use of these as tracer conditions for health system capacity to manage NCDs and NTDs.
Meet the Main and Co-Applicants of COHESION
Main Applicant / Principal Investigator
Dr. David H. Beran, PhD
University of Geneva and Geneva University Hospitals, Division of Tropical and Humanitarian Medicine
Research interests: health systems; management of chronic diseases; diabetes; patient needs; access to insulin and the issue of multi-morbidity.
What does the COHESION Project mean for me?
“The COHESION Project is a unique opportunity to work with a unique group of colleagues on a poorly researched topic focusing on vulnerable populations and through research to strengthen health systems to address to neglected global health issues, namely Noncommunicable and Neglected Tropical diseases.”
Co-Applicants / Co-Investigators
Prof. Dr. Sandro Cattacin, PhD
University of Geneva
Prof. Dr. François, Chappuis, MD, PhD
Geneva University Hospitals and University of Geneva
Prof. Dr. Albertino Damasceno, PhD, MD
Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique
Prof. Dr. Nilambar Jha, MD, PhD
B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal
Dr. Jaime Miranda, PhD, MD
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru
Dr. Claire Somerville, PhD
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
Prof. Dr. L. Suzanne Suggs, PhD
Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano