April 9, 2020
Bridging local efforts for global supports
How 蓝莓视频 professors are helping adapt health-response guidelines for lower-resource areas
COVID-19 has introduced strains to health systems around the world that modern society has never seen before. The outcomes have resulted in an uphill battle for many communities working to mobilize health-care workers and managing dwindling supplies of resources.
In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) has during the pandemic. But what happens when a country can鈥檛 meet these recommendations?
Warren Dodd and Jim Wallace, professors with the School of Public Health and Health Systems, are taking these guidelines a step further.
Warren Dodd
鈥淲e鈥檙e adapting them for low resource health posts or health-care settings,鈥� Dodd says. 鈥淭he ultimate goal is to come up with a generic set of guidelines that could be used across different low- and middle-income countries.
Working in collaboration with the University of Toronto, the multi-institutional project received a to pursue the initiative more actively.
鈥淚鈥檝e never seen resources for research mobilize this quickly,鈥� Dodd says. 鈥淲e had about a week-and-a-half to write and submit the proposal, and then the results were announced a week later. Usually, it takes about six to eight months to hear back.鈥�
Initial collaborations are beginning with the Philippines, a country with a population three times larger than Canada, but about 33 times smaller in landmass. With such a large number of inhabitants and high levels of income inequality, the situation there is especially dire.
鈥淎s we鈥檙e seeing at home, health-care workers need our full support, and that鈥檚 especially true globally, where they may not have the resources and infrastructure that we do in Canada,鈥� says Wallace.
Jim Wallace
Pivoting priorities toward pandemic aid
According to global media outlets, 50 million people in the Philippines are currently living in lockdown. Many front-line workers are reporting a desperate lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), with some resorting to making their own. Testing kits aren鈥檛 available, and the country is still waiting on one million pieces of PPE supplies.
Dodd has worked with a large non-governmental organization in the Philippines since 2017, so it was a natural fit when pivoting priorities toward pandemic aid.
鈥淥ur previous working relationship with community partners and physicians in the Philippines allows us to hit the ground running and also do a lot of this work remotely, which is increasingly the way we鈥檙e going to have to work,鈥� Dodd says.
With travel restrictions still in place and a 12-hour time difference between the two countries, the internet and phone calls are the only point of connection to their colleagues 11,000 kilometres away. While the task can be trying as internet and cell phone reception is better in some areas than others, the cause is always clear.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really about bringing the knowledge and expertise that we all have together and contributing to this project,鈥� Dodd says. 鈥淔or example, Jim Wallace is thinking of creative ways to disseminate the guidelines to diverse audiences. He has thought a lot about app development as a way of promoting healthy behaviours and how to share up-to-date information with a health-care workforce.鈥�
Dodd, Wallace and the team are hoping to have guidelines in place in the next month or two, at which point evaluations will begin with health officials in the Philippines and adjusted accordingly. The pair say they鈥檙e relying on the expertise and networking of their team members abroad to create new partnerships and provide insights on how to adjust plans when needed. After wrapping up efforts there, the team plans to adapt the guidelines for Sri Lanka.
鈥淒espite some of the unpredictability and the evolving situation, we are still able to work really well together,鈥� Dodd says. 鈥淚 have been so impressed by the energy and enthusiasm of my colleagues at U of T and in the Philippines, and I鈥檝e really valued the opportunity to work with them on this.鈥�
