The Columbia Global Centers |Nairobi in collaboration with Dr. Kavita Ahluwalia, Associate Professor of Dental Medicine (Community Health) at Columbia University Medical College (CUMC);Postdoctoral Program Director-Dental Public Health, the principal investigator will undertake the 'Oral Health Program Planning and Evaluation: Training for Action with New Partners’ research works. The program seeks to evaluate and seek new partners in Kenya’s oral health care sector, necessitated by the growing oral-health burden, the limited number of practicing dentists, and the need to integrate oral health programming with existing health services delivery systems.
The study will collaborate with local partners, including the University of Nairobi and the Ministry of Health, to plan, develop, and evaluate the 'train-the-trainer’ curriculum and toolkit. In so doing, the project aims to leverage the potential of an existing collaborative to build local capacity and implement a program that has a high potential for sustainability. Strategically, the study envisions the study will be modified for translation to other sites and settings, and with support from other partners, establish an e-learning initiative for other regions with similar health needs.
This study will build on Dr. Ahluwalia's introductory study, ‘A learning Laboratory between Kenya and Brazil’ where modified Delphi methods and the framework to promote cross-national knowledge transfer to address oral health in East Africa conducted at the Columbia Global Centers| Nairobi in 2018.
