UNC collaborative to uncover ways to improve global water and sanitation
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The University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health has received a federal grant of nearly $260,000 to improve water and sanitation (WatSan) programs in developing countries by finding better ways to collect and communicate information needed to develop effective water and sanitation policy issues. The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s John E. Fogarty International Center awarded the grant through the Framework Programs for Global Health Signature Innovations Initiative as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Dr. Margaret Bentley
Dr. Jamie Bartram
Margaret Bentley, PhD, professor of nutrition and associate dean for global health in UNC’s public health school, is principal investigator for the project, called “Water Wisdom: Developing Local-Global Capacities in Managing Water.” Jamie Bartram, PhD, professor of environmental sciences and engineering and director of The Water Institute at UNC, is co-principal investigator. One primary objective, they said, is to develop a set of transferable skills among researchers, including how to cooperate across national boundaries. “The systems in place to create, collect, consolidate and transmit information to those who contribute to WatSan service provision are inadequate,” Bentley said, “and as a result, systems fail, and many proven ‘good practices’ are not applied. Millions of people, primarily children, die or suffer from preventable diseases each year because of a lack of adequate WatSan services.”
The research takes the first steps in formulating a comprehensive understanding of how information is used by policy makers and practitioners in WatSan, Bentley said, and will suggest opportunities where application of developments in information technology could lead to more effective and robust systems in both developing and developed nations.
“The potential impact of Water Wisdom is high,” Bartram said. “Policies and programs that are better informed by timely and objective evidence can dramatically improve the lives of millions of people currently without adequate water or sanitation systems. Even a small impact on policy making and decision taking has the potential for substantive global public health gains.”
The research collaboration will involve the public health school’s department of environmental sciences and engineering, Office of Global Health and the Water Institute at UNC. Other collaborators are from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Public Policy, and Renaissance Computing Initiative (RENCI), as well as the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
The Framework Programs for Global Health Signature Innovations Initiative provides short-term support to U.S. universities and their partners to create infrastructure, resources, and opportunities for training postdoctoral investigators to carry out innovative, multidisciplinary team research in global health. The initiative emphasizes hands-on problem solving, and collaborative approaches and may require the development of new training models and new partnerships within and outside the university.
Note: Bartram can be reached at jbartram@email.unc.edu or 966-3934. Bentley can be reached at pbentley@unc.edu or 919-966-9575.
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, 919-966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.
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