The BIS programme in Ethiopia
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Building Stronger Public Health Institutions and Systems (BIS) in Ethiopia: Our overarching ambition is to strengthen both Ethiopia and Norway’s public health institutions towards competent and resilient public health systems.
Aim of the BIS Collaboration in Ethiopia
Our collective aim through this collaboration is to establish practices of systematic collection of quality information, use of data for health research and enhance uptake for decision making.
The focus areas of this collaboration is to support:
- Environmental epidemiological studies to understand the consequences of environmental risks, such as air pollution and climate change on population health via one PhD student under the EthAir Project.
- A collaborative knowledge exchange with sister institutions, Norwegian Institution of Public Health (NIPH) and Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) and other actors.
EthAir project updates
August 2022:
The BIS Ethiopia team, with members from NIPH and EPHI, participated at the 34th annual conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE). This flagship project under the BIS-Ethiopia collaboration was presented in a poster called "The EthAir project: Deciphering the burden of air pollution in Ethiopia - A project under the Building Stronger Public Health Institutions (BIS) program." The submitted abstract and poster were co-written by NIPH and EPHI researchers.
February 2022 – May 2022:
A nationwide survey of more than 20,000 households was conducted in Ethiopia for information related to use of energy for cooking, heating and other household characteristics.
July 2023:
PhD student participated in the European Educational Programme in Epidemiology for 3 week residential course and the specialised 4-day course on GIS (Geographical Information Systems) in Environmental Epidemiology in Florence, Italy.
September 2023:
PhD student enrolled in NMBU and initiated coursework through a 6 week visit to Norway.
October 2023:
PhD student participated in the ENBEL conference on connecting health and climate change and presented PhD project orally.
August 2024:
The EthAir project initially identified potential data sources relevant to inform the burden of air pollution in Ethiopia. Data sources of 20,000 households from the first National Hygiene and Environmental Health survey was used for this reason. Two scientific manuscripts on outcome modeling of diseases associated with household air pollution are underway.
The project has also aspired to build air quality monitoring capacity of EPHI. The project has identified low-cost optical counters as an optimal approach to overcome the dearth of data on household air quality in Ethiopia. The project will not only purchase the equipment but also hopes to ensure the sustainable use of the equipment in future endeavors since local knowledge will be built on assembly and repair.
Knowledge exchange between sister institutions
June 2022:
Memorandum of Agreement was signed between NIPH and EPHI in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
February 2023:
NIPH co-organized with Ethiopian collaborators a NIPN seminar, on “Promoting Sustainable and Healthy Diets: The Role of National Public Health Institutes”, with approximately 70 attendees. Helle Margrete Meltzer (NIPH) a senior scientist from Climate and Environmental Health described the historical perspective of the Nordic countries’ food-based dietary guidelines, the experience of the Nordic countries’ collaboration regarding dietary recommendations, regulations, and monitoring, as well as environmental issues. Dr. Line Småstuen Haug (NIPH) from Climate and Environmental Health, the co-leader of the Center for Sustainable Diets described an innovative and coordinated national program for monitoring the diet and exposure to environmental contaminants. Dr. Yewelsew Abebe from Ethiopia outlined the Ethiopian food-based dietary guidelines for addressing sustainable and healthy diets, its status of implementation, and how to make it sustainable.
June 2023:
Collaborative Agreement was signed between NIPH and EPHI to better specify tasks and funding associated with work under the BIS project.
August 2023:
A successful application was awarded under the Horizon Europe Programme, called ENABLE. This project’s aim is to promote healthy eating habits, increase physical activity, and reduce exposure to pollution within urban communities in Ethiopia.
Dr. Adugna Woyessa senior scientist from EPHI, funded under the BIS program, attended the 2nd CHANCE Network Conference on Climate Change and Health in Africa as a presenter and panelist, which allowed for researchers, academia and policy-maker, as well as, development partners, to come together to facilitate evidence-informed action against climate-sensitive diseases in the African Region. Dr.Adugna said “I learned a lot of the promising efforts in progress being a panelist and presenter during the recent CHANCE conference. There was an opportunity to networking with researchers and academicians as well as WHO African Regional Office.”
October 2023:
Colleagues from NIPH, EPHI and the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) delivered together the Environmental Epidemiology and Exposure Assessment short course. This training was tailored for public health professionals from EPHI with the objectives of equipping them with skills to recognize and respond to emerging environmental health threats and ultimately enable them to contribute to disease prevention and improved health outcomes. In addition, this course facilitated the interaction between Nigerian and Ethiopian public health scientists from National Public Health Institutes who recognized the great opportunity for establishing official collaboration.
The NIPH and EPHI had their annual BIS meeting where achievements were celebrated, and future plans were discussed.
Later in the month, EPHI visited NIPH for a knowledge exchange visit to learn about the different responsibilities and departments at NIPH and to identify potential future opportunities for collaboration. The tours of the NIPH’s Biobank and the biomonitoring lab at the Department of Food Safety were very informative, as well as the discussions and presentations from NIPH experts on the activities on the topics of outbreak response and surveillance, Implementation Research, Health Economics and Knowledge Translation.
November 2023:
A successful application, BRIDGE NETWORK: Scaling Up Research in SSA Countries in Infectious Diseases: African-European Training Network in Integrated Health Informatics and Data Sciences, was announced under the Horizon Europe Programme, led by the University of Ghent, in a partner application with NIPH (Department for Global Health), EPHI and BIS partners at the Ugandan National Institute of Public Health.
February 2024:
ENABLE project kicks off with an official project launch at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
April – June 2024:
Capacity building opportunity to improve R course expertise initiated at EPHI.
May 2024:
Twinning project initiated between environmental health specialists at EPHI and NIPH to work towards work evaluating climate variables and anemia in preschool and school age children.
September 2024:
EPHI, in collaboration with NIPH and with support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), held a half-day seminar on Climate Change and Health aimed at directing efforts toward mitigating the impacts of climate change on public health in Addis Ababa.
Training course was sponsored by BIS with the focus on European Union funding Project and Financial Management for partners under BIS Uganda and BIS Ethiopia.
NIPH Collaborative Team
- NIPH Country Coordinator: Eleni Papadopoulou
- BIS Project Management Support: Tara Kelly Dolgner
- Expert Technical Support: Per Schwarze, Shilpa Rao-Skirbekk, Geir Aamodt (NMBU)
