On top of the Kiswahili course I am taking, I am also taking
three courses at the University of Nairobi School of Public Health. I am
taking: Epidemiology, Community Health, and Environmental Health. The
professors that teach these courses are experts in the field (one of them is a
consultant for the Ministry of Health, and another just met with President
Kenyatta’s wife about Maternal and Child Health). I want to give a quick run
down of each class, then talk about the overall school experience!
Epidemiology: This class is great because this is what I am
interested in pursuing as a career. Thanks to my knowledge of Biostatics
(Thanks Prof. P!) the beginning of this class has been great because it’s more
applying the biostatics side to an epidemiological side (looking at which
population we would invest time and money into with regards to a particular
issue). Ebola is a popular conversation in this class, and it feels a bit
surreal to be talking about it because our own faculty are actively involved in
monitoring the situation. One day we could be talking about it hypothetically
and the next there could be a case at Kenyatta National Hospital, a 2-minute
walk from our classroom.
Community Health: This course is probably the one I am most
excited for, for a few reasons. First and foremost the professors name is
Peter, which is my ‘new’ name so that’s a sign, right? Secondly throughout this
course we will be developing a community health diagnosis assessment then in
October we are spending a week in a rural village living with families and
using this survey to identify health issues in the community, which we will
then turn into a proposal for action. At AU we always talk about using what we
learn in the classroom in the real world, but this opportunity is exactly that.
We aren’t looking for a problem that has been identified by the faculty, we are
evaluating the health of the community and our findings have the ability to
meaningfully impact this community.
Environmental Health: This course is just as exciting and
interesting but is particularly special because a lot of the work we will be
doing will be to look at the environmental health issues here in Nairobi and
compare them to those in the US. For example, one assignment we’ve had is to
list types of fuels and conduct a risk assessment on that type of fuel. This is
something that doesn’t really come into play in the US, but here the types of
fuels used are so diverse and each one presents unique challenges. I’ve also
become known as the resident biostatician having been the only one in the class
who has taken Biostatics. I hope I can live up to the expectations!
Overall, my courses are great but there’s also something
very special about them: we are learning in an environment that you would be
hard-pressed to find in the US. This became clear in Community Health when most
of our conversations revolved around the health behaviors of tribes and how we
can present information to them in small group and one-on-one. An example we
had was unclean water (something we rarely talk about as happening in the US),
and how the community members may not recognize that they have had diarrhea
that can be associated with the water source. This type of cross-cultural
learning has created stumbling blocks, but I’ve already learned an incredible
amount about conducting work in the field – and feel that my knowledge of
public health and health communication has increased an incredible amount. As
simply as realizing that we will be viewed as public health specialists and we
better be prepared to drink 10 cups of tea a day, because we will be offered
some and it’s impolite to refuse. Additionally, the issues that we encounter in
Environmental health are rarely talked about in the US. For example we spent an
incredibly amount of time talking about Water Guard – a chlorine based water
cleaner. We evaluate the risks of using it vs. not using it and how we could go
about getting a community to use water guard. Again, this is something
practical that we may encounter in the field.
Beyond my actual classes, one of the best parts about
studying at the University of Nairobi is the small café right outside of our
classroom! This café is also really unique because it caters mainly to the
medical students, so it’s very weird not having a white coat to hang up as we
walk in. The waiter has gotten to know us quite well, and the food there is a
pretty inexpensive and pretty good! It’s become a habit of mine to get a
mandazi (similar to a donut, just not as heavy and sweet) for 25ksh which is about
30cents. Samosas are 35ksh, and cups of tea are 25ksh. Lunch for 7 of us costs
us around 1500sh, which is about 17 dollars. This café is great and I’m loving
the Kenyan food they serve! I will most certainly miss my daily mandazi’s when
classes end.
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