Promoting Collaborative Partnership and Understanding of Malaria in Kenya

Background

TOMO Global Health is an online program which brings together international students and promotes acquisition of essential competencies through asynchronous learning, to promote interprofessional team working and foster the next generation of global health leaders.

Summary of Work

Our case study program identifies key global health challenges and offers participants opportunities to develop solutions and strategic implementation plans to address them. Our recent case study ‘Malaria in Kenya’ consisted of a 6-week program of asynchronous learning modules and live sessions, with international student participants from Kenya, Japan, UK, and Cyprus, and expert facilitators from Japan and Kenya. Participants were divided into groups, introduced to the project aims, and tasked to create logic trees analysing specific challenges and produce creative output solutions relating to Malaria in Kenya, with financed timelines, operating plan and SWOT analysis.

Summary of Results

Posters were produced summarising group findings and solutions. The primary problem identified was limitation of knowledge and adherence to national guidelines on Malaria in Kenya. Solutions included public education, workshops, and educating healthcare staff, with financial incentives, revision of the medical curriculum and revision of guidelines to support educational improvements. Consequently, posters were distributed by Kenyan healthcare students among local healthcare facilities including subcounty hospitals and dispensaries.

Discussion and Conclusion

This case study facilitated collaboration of healthcare students from different educational and cultural backgrounds, and addressed the important global health challenge of Malaria in Kenya. Strategic implementation plans for identified solutions included collaboration with local NGOs, community outreach, and region-specific management teams. Overall, students were effective in synthesising knowledge gained with previous skills and experience to produce creative solutions, and students were able to collaborate and expand their network at an international level.

Take home messages

a. TOMO global health is an international online community that fosters the next generation of global health leaders through asynchronous learning.

b. Our case study program brought together international healthcare students to analyse and produce solutions to the challenge of Malaria in Kenya.

c. Creative outputs were distributed by Kenyan healthcare students among local healthcare facilities, and students were able to expand their networks at an international level.