The Director of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) will be the guest speaker at a University of Queensland School of Population Health (SPH) ceremony tomorrow (Friday, June 13).
Professor Michael Good (telephone 07 3362 0203) will discuss the importance of public health research during the ceremony at QIMR’s Bancroft centre at 3:45pm.
As President of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes and Professor of UQ’s Tropical Health Program Professor Good is researching immunity to malaria and rheumatic fever with the aim of developing vaccines.
SPH Postgraduate Program Coordinator Kenneth Rouse said a number of students would be graduating at the ceremony with many graduating in the Master of Public Health program. The program is run in collaboration with the Australian Centre for International and Tropical Health and Nutrition.
“These students have all completed three months of group fieldwork in a country in south east Asia or the Pacific,” he said.
Dr Alfred Mashandich Boyo, who will graduate with a Master of Public Health (Community Nutrition), travelled from Uganda to study at UQ. He previously worked as a paediatrician in a regional hospital in Uganda.
Dr Boyo and three other students conducted fieldwork research in north-east Thailand investigating the effectiveness of an iron supplementation program for the prevention of anaemia in pregnant women.
“This is an important subject because anaemia due to iron deficiency in pregnancy is a very common problem in developing countries with serious outcomes for both the mother and the baby,” he said.
The group investigated how the program had performed in the Nam Phong district of Thailand. They visited antenatal care clinics, interviewed a number of women and spoke to members of the local community and health workers at the district health centres.
“We found that compared to other developing countries this program had done very well in this part of Thailand although there are still some problems that need to be looked into,” he said.
Dr Boyo said the Thailand program held important lessons for developing countries.
“As a paediatrician in Uganda I found nutritional problems among children a big concern. I felt that to make a contribution to the improvement of this situation in Uganda it would be beneficial to do this course," he said
Dr Alison Van Haeringen, who will graduate with a Master of Public Health, will deliver the valedictory address at the ceremony.
Also in attendance will be guests from the institutions the School of Population Health collaborates with for the teaching of its programs. They will include Dr Thay Ly Heng from the National Institute of Public Health in Cambodia and Dr Marilla Lucero from the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine in Manila.
For information contact Chris Saxby at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2479, email: c.saxby@uq.edu.au).
