Research Description
Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, our teams pivoted to work on COVID-related research in the many countries in which we work. Some of our partners were especially hard-hit. For example, Peru has experienced one of the highest mortality rates from COVID-19 in the world (648.5 deaths per 100,000) and our Lima-based partner organization, Socios En Salud, rapidly mobilized to provide COVID diagnoses and care as well as implementation research in that setting.
Through our long-standing relationship with the NGO, Partners In Health, we established the COVID-19 Multicountry Research Group (CovMRG) which convened researchers, clinicians and program leaders from across Harvard Medical School, Partners In Health, and 8 PIH sites. The primary goal was to provide real-time information to sites to support COVID-19 responses and general health program implementation during the pandemic. Over 2.5 years of collaboration, the team has identified core priority questions, developed methods to answer these questions that could be tailored to site needs, collaborated on cross-site research activities, and shared best practices.
To date, the team has published eleven papers and led two multi-country training courses on topics related to the CovMRG research. That work has included a series of studies on COVID surveillance as well as evaluations of the impact of COVID-19 on the provision of essential health services including childhood vaccination and maternal and perinatal care. In addition, core members supported teams in the countries in which we work to address country level responses to COVID and the impact of Covid on highly vulnerable populations. The team won the 2022 Statistical Partnerships in Academe, Industry and Government Award from the American Statistical Association for their collaborative work.
Research Projects
Bias^2
Description: The goal of this project is to assess disparities along the COVID-19 care cascade and elucidate community-level factors that impact the relationship between race and ethnicity and hospitalization and death among persons with confirmed COVID-19 infection.
Core Member(s): Molly Franke
Funder: Harvard Data Science Initiative
Funding Number: N/A
The impact of COVID-19 on chronic care patients’ health care utilization and health outcomes in Haiti, Malawi, Mexico and Rwanda
Description: This project aims to create a multi-country database to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on care provision and care outcomes.
Core Member(s): Dale Barnhart (PI) (former), Isabel Fulcher (former), Bethany Hedt-Gauthier
Funder: ICODA/Gates Grand Challenges
Funding Number: N/A
Improving vaccine research uptake in vulnerable COVID-19 populations: A mixed methods approach to analyze participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and experiences regarding participation in vaccine trials and ultimate acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine
Description: The goal of this project is to explore attitudes about COVID-19 vaccine trials and uptake in an underserved predominately Black and LatinX community in Boston.
Core Member(s): Megan Murray (PI)
Funder: Merck Sharp and Dohme Corp
Funding Number: A48313
Leveraging community health workers to combat health misinformation in Haiti, Malawi, and Rwanda
Description: This project will develop and evaluate an SMS-based educational intervention targeting community health workers (CHWs) working in Haiti, Malawi, and Rwanda. Through the identification of locally and relevant COVID-19 misinformation, we will develop and disseminate targeted messaging to CHWs randomized to a COVID-19 misinformation correction arm or a mental health messaging arm.
Core Member(s): Ximena Tovar, Maya Williams, Dale Barnhart (former), Bethany Hedt-Gauthier (Co-PI with Kachimanga, C.)
Funder: Social Science Research Council- The Mercury Project
Funding Number: N/A
COVID-19 in Lima, Peru
Description: During the COVID-19 epidemic, our team supported Socios En Salud in studying the prevalence, impact and diagnostic efficacy of tests for Covid-19.
Core Member(s): Molly Franke (Co-Investigator) (PI: R. Calderón, M. Tovar)
Funder: N/A
Funding Number: N/A