Building Capacity for COVID-19 Surveillance: A Statistics Course for Health Officials in Seven Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of health program implementors and research analysts across seven low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) alongside Boston-based collaborators convened to implement data-driven approaches for public health response. An intensive statistics and data science training short course was developed to ensure that in-country researchers could implement the necessary statistical methods for COVID-19 surveillance. The main goal of the course was to enable interpretation of findings from time series analyses and flag potential data issues. This manuscript summarizes our experience teaching this course, including a detailed course overview, participant feedback, and thoughts on how targeted, online courses can be used to support statistical capacity building in LMICs.

KEYWORDS:

• Capacity building
• COVID-19
• Surveillance
• Time series modeling

Supplementary Materials

All course materials, as well as code to produce the results and figures, deidentified data, and all results and figures, can be found online at: https://isabelfulcher.github.io/CIHR_training_course/.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the Partners In Health Cross-site COVID-19 Working Group: Harvard University: Dale Barnhart, Isabel Fulcher, Anuraag Gopaluni, Bethany Hedt-Gauthier, Nick Link, Megan Murray, Karina Vasudeva, Kaylin Vrkljan; Partners In Health/Boston: Donald Fejfar, Julia Higgins, Stefanie Joseph, Jean Claude Mugunga; Partners In Health/Haiti: Jeune Marc Antoinne, Maurice Junior Chery, Mary Clisbee, Kobel Dubique, Peterson Abnis I Faure, Wesler Lambert, Fernet Leandre; Partners In Health/Lesotho: Afom T. Andom, Mathabang Mokoena, Meba Msuya, Melino Ndayizigiye, Patrick Nkundanyirazo; Partners In Health/Liberia: Emma Boley, Luke Krangar, Prince F. Varney; Partners In Health/Malawi: Moses Aron, Emilia Connolly, Chiyembekezo Kachimanga, Beatrice Matanje, Manuel Mulwafu, Fabien Munyaneza, Haules Zanikuh; Partners In Health/Mexico: Zeus Aranda, Daniel Bernal, Sandra Vázquez; Partners In Health/Peru: Leonid Lecca, Jesús Peinado, Marco Tovar; Partners In Health/Rwanda: Vincent K. Cubaka, Placide Habinshuti, Nadine Karema, Fredrick Kateera, Alphonse Nshimyiryo; Partners In Health/Sierra Leone: Thierry Binde, Foday Boima, Gregory Jerome, Marta Patino, Ricard Pognon.

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, where M.L. and B.H-G. are PIs.