Projects & Capacity Strengthening

First and foremost, we grow the talent of scientists in our member institutions as well as enhance the capacity of the institutions to conduct world-class research.

So far INDEPTH has engaged in an extensive programme of capacity strengthening among our member centres, primarily by conducting workshops to address specific and general deficiencies in data collection, management and analysis within the network. Beyond improving individual members, the goal has been to improve the general capacity of the Network to meet our objectives of conducting multi-centre studies.

Develop standardised tools and approaches to capture, share and compare data across members. INDEPTH exists to improve the amount, quality and impact of the research conducted by members. To do this, INDEPTH and the member centres need to collect high-quality health and demographic surveillance data, analyze these data to generate findings, and make standardized data series and datasets available to the wider scientific community. 

We focus on an interrelated set of issues that are delaying the production of health statistics and preventing scientists elsewhere from maximising the value of the data. These concern the creation of metadata, increasing the cross-site comparability of the analytic variables, and supporting data sharing. 

We support our member centres to share HDSS data responsibly and widely with the international scientific community by conducting standardised quality controls. The major vehicle is our INDEPTH Data Management Programme (IDMP) initiative. This programme prepares member centres not only to share data but also to improve the quality of data collected.

Play a quality assurance role to strengthen the quality, relevance and effectiveness of the research produced by member institutions as well as of the Network

INDEPTH invests resources to assure high quality data are generated by our member centres. Starting with the minimum data set condition for full membership, the Secretariat has established in consultation with the Scientific Advisory Committee and other stakeholders, an experienced data quality inspection team.

How we work