The International Center for Equity in Health (ICEH), since its inception, has been involved in capacity strengthening, mostly in partnership with the Countdown to 2030 initiative. ICEH members participate in or organize workshops, courses and country case studies carried out in several places, mainly in Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean. The activities include lectures and practical sessions to highlight the importance of the evaluation of inequalities in the context of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health and nutrition. Below is a list of all such activities which the ICEH has organized or collaborated with.
From April 22 to 26, the Countdown to 2030 Annual Meeting was held in Kigali, Rwanda, entitled “Producing reliable national and subnational health statistics with a focus on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition”. The workshop was organized by the Countdown to 2030 in collaboration with the African Population Health Research Center, University of Rwanda and Global Financing Facility, bringing together over 200 researchers, stakeholders, and experts from 25 countries from sub-Saharan Africa and global level experts.
The ICEH delegation was composed of Professor Aluisio Barros, Fernando Wehrmeister, Cauane Blumenberg, Leonardo Ferreira and Franciele Hellwig, which were responsible for coordinating the equity sessions and provided direct support to Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana and Malawi, as well as other countries. Following a sucessful week of hard work, each country was able to analyze their own health facility data and put together a chartbook that will serve as a base for each country's report for dissemination.
On February 26th and 27th, the ICEH researcher Fernando Wehrmeister participated in the Evaluation Committee for activity proposals that will be part of the program of the 12th Brazilian Congress of Epidemiology.
The Congress (12th EPI) will take place between November 23rd and 27th, 2024, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
During the meeting, the Committee reviewed over 200 suggestions for lectures and panel discussions, as well as 80 proposals for pre-congress activities, which were submitted by the community of researchers and professionals associated with the Associação Brasileira de Saúde Coletiva - Abrasco.
Associate Professor Fernando C. Wehrmeister traveled to Lusaka, Zambia, to participate in two events. The first event took place on November 27th as part of the 3rd International Conference on Public Health in Africa. In a satellite event coordinated by the Countdown to 2030 African Population Health and Research Centre, Dr. Wehrmeister discussed the identification of impoverished groups in the largest cities in 38 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This scientific work has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Urban Health.
Following the conference, from November 28th to December 1st, he participated in a workshop on maternal and neonatal health, also organized by the same institutions. During this workshop, delegates from 22 countries discussed survey results and service data to better inform policymakers. The aim was to facilitate informed decision-making to enhance coverage and reduce health disparities in indicators related to women and children.
The Countdown to 2030 Annual Meeting 2023 was held in Dakar, Senegal, from June 19th to 23rd, with the aim of strengthening strategies and actions to improve maternal, newborn and child health. Organized by the Countdown to 2030 consortium, in collaboration with the African Population Health Research Center and Global Financing Facility, the meeting brought together almost 200 researchers, stakeholders, and experts from 22 countries from sub-Saharan Africa. This gathering provided a unique platform for discussions on best practices to analyze health facility data and capacity building.
During the meeting, directors of the International Center for Equity in Health (ICEH), Aluisio Barros and Cauane Blumenberg, along with researchers Lissandra Santos and Natalia Lima, played a significant role in coordinating training sessions focusing on health inequalities and providing support to Mozambique and other countries. Following a week of intensive training, each country was able to analyze health facility data and the outcomes achieved were presented as posters. Each country team had the opportunity to showcase their analyses and findings, highlighting the advancements made in maternal, newborn and child health within their respective countries.
The Countdown Annual Meeting 2023 served as a reaffirmation of the global commitment to improving maternal, newborn and child health by fostering collaboration and facilitating knowledge exchange among participants, the meeting underscored the importance of joint actions in order to achieve a better future for women and children worldwide.
This training was part of the Countdown 2030 for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health (CD2030) Fellowship Program to strengthen research and analytical capacities for monitoring and tracking the progress of life-saving interventions for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH+N) in CD2030 collaborating countries in Africa. ICEH researcher Leonardo Ferreira with remote participation from Aluisio Barros conducted four sessions, divided into lectures and practical guided exercises, with the objective of introducing key concepts of equity in health, methods and tools for analyzing and visualizing equity-disaggregated data and reflections on interpretation, patterns and trajectories of health inequalities.
ICEH researcher Cauane Blumenberg participated in the International Maternal and Newborn Health Conference (IMNHC), held in May 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa. During the event, Blumenberg presented a study on trends and inequalities on a set of maternal and newborn health interventions in seven countries that are considered to be exemplary in reducing maternal and neonatal mortality.
The presentation was performed as part of a panel entitled "Learning from the past, connecting to the future: insights from seven maternal and newborn health (MNH) exemplar countries using a mortality transition model", in which Dr. Blumenberg shared the stage with other internationally renowned researchers.
The results of the study showed that all seven exemplar countries showed improvements in antenatal care, institutional delivery, and postnatal care interventions - also reducing the gaps between urban and rural residents. Also, there were important reductions of wealth-related inequalities in some of the countries. "We were able to highlight that despite good progress was made, inequalities still exist in some of the countries. Our study can help public managers to identify which subgroups of the population are most in need of improvements in maternal and newborn interventions." said Dr. Blumenberg.
Between November 6th and 10th, 2023, Franciele Hellwig and Larissa Adna were in Guinea-Bissau to participate in the '14th Joint Annual Workshop of Managers of National Health Information Systems (NHIS) and Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) Programs of Economic Community of West African Countries - ECOWAS.'
The event brought together representatives from 15 ECOWAS member countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Crucial challenges related to the integration and sharing of information generated by the health systems of these countries were discussed during the workshop. Data on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health were especially highlighted.
During the event, Hellwig had the opportunity to share knowledge and discuss with the ECOWAS community about the importance of monitoring health inequalities and how to measure them in different domains of equity, with a special focus on subnational inequalities.
From April 3rd to April 7th, the Track20 initiative partnered with the Countdown to 2030 to strengthen analytical capacities and evidence use for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent’s Health in low- and middle-income countries. The workshop aimed to support officers and analytics working family planning within Ministries of Health and academic institutions to use tools and methodologies to improve effectiveness of monitoring of family planning in their countries. ICEH researchers Leonardo Ferreira and Franciele Hellwig were responsible for discussing equity in the context of family planning and supervised the reports produced by each country. The training included participants from over 50 countries who participate in the global FP2030 initiative.
Between November 6th and 10th, the ICEH researchers Fernando Wehrmeister and Luis Vidaletti, worked in Maputo with representatives from Mozambique's Ministry of Health and National Institute of Health. The aim was to provide guidance on best practices for analyzing simple and complex data as well as trends in health inequalities in Mozambique.
This workshop represents another of the capacity building training initiatives that the International Center for Health Equity (ICEH) is constantly involved, aiming to promote the improvement of health inequality assessments in different countries.
Organized through a partnership between Countdown to 2030 initiative, the National Institute of Health, and the Ministry of Health of Mozambique, the workshop included theory and practical sessions where knowledge and experiences were shared among the teams during their collaborative work.
The event was promoted by the Countdown to 2030, with the support from the African Population Health Research Center and Global Financing Facility. Twenty-two countries sent participants, all of them from the Sub-Saharan African region. ICEH researchers coordinated the training session “Survey coverage and equity analyses to support facility data analyses” showing how to work with coverage indexes and equity measures at national and subnational levels. During the workshops, participants learned about tools to work health facility data collected by their own countries.
In June 2022, researchers from the International Center for Equity in Health (ICEH) Aluisio Barros and Fernando Wehrmeister participated in the event “Producing reliable national and subnational health statistics with a focus on maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition” whose objective was to strengthen skills of the country teams in the analysis of health facility and national and subnational data.
This workshop aimed to analyze data on female-headed households, using nationally representative surveys with a focus on gender equity. It was held at the American University of Beirut in Beirut, Lebanon, in January 2020. The target participants were mainly from academic institutions from the MENA region. Aluísio Barros, a researcher and the technical director of the ICEH, participated as one of the facilitators.
In collaboration with West African Health Organization, Johns Hopkins University and African Population Health and Research Centre, the ICEH researchers Fernando Wehrmeister and Inacio Crochemore da Silva participated in the first workshop on nutrition data for the Countdown to 2030 initiative. This workshop was held in Dakar, Senegal, in June 2019. The ICEH researchers covered how to calculate and interpret data on nutritional indicators by applying an equity lens to the data. Participants included Ministries of Health and academic personnel.
With the theme “Leaving no woman and no child behind: levels and trends in inequalities in nutrition coverage and status among women, children, and adolescents”, ICEH researchers Inacio Crochemore da Silva and Giovanna Gatica-Domínguez participated as facilitators in the 2nd nutrition workshop held in Dakar, Senegal in October 2019. It included participants from Ministries of Health and academics from Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The participants acquired competences in equity analysis and data interpretation in order to expand countries’ progress.
This workshop was organized by the ICEH, in partnership with the African Population Health Research Centre, and was held in Dakar, Senegal in November 2019. The aim of the workshop was to discuss and analyze data primarily from the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys. Cesar Victora and Aluisio Barros, the heads of the ICEH, and the researchers Leonardo Ferreira, Franciele Hellwig and Andrea Wendt served as facilitators for the participants, who included researchers and political personnel involved in gender equality.
From April to May, 2019, ICEH and PAHO/WHO collaborated with the Haiti health authorities in order to provide a big picture of maternal and child health in the country. The Haiti case study also included a workshop on equity measurements, where the researchers Gary Joseph and Luis Paulo Vidaletti were responsible for organizing the workshop agenda and sessions. The aim of the workshop was to inform the Ministry of Health personnel on how to analyze and interpret data based on surveys carried out in Haiti throughout the years.
The Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Pan-American Health Organization called for a partnership with the ICEH, a WHO collaborative center for health equity. The partnership was built on the premise that health services in the country need people to understand the importance of equity analysis in the monitoring of health indicators. The workshop occurred in November, 2019 and was led by the ICEH researchers Fernando Wehrmeister, Andrea Wendt, Cauane Blumenberg and Janaína Calu Costa. The target participants of the workshop were technical staff from the Ministry of Health and PAHO.
The "2nd Data Analysis Workshop to strengthen analysis and evidence for RMNCAH in West and Central Africa" was promoted by the Countdown to 2030 initiative, of which the ICEH is one of the collaborators. The workshop was held in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, in September, 2018 and focused on data analysis and interpretation. The equity session was led by the researchers Fernando Wehrmeister and Inacio Crochemore da Silva and included simple and complex inequality measures for ordered and non-ordered groups. Academics and Ministry of Health participants were selected to be part of the workshop.
During July 2018, the “2nd Countdown to 2030 capacity building workshop” was held in Naivasha, Kenya. The ICEH researchers Fernando Wehrmeister and Leonardo Ferreira were responsible for the equity analysis session and facilitating the practical sessions during the workshop. These sessions include how to measure health inequalities in simple and complex ways, focusing on the target readers of the results. Representatives from Eastern and Southern African countries were included in the workshop, mainly from Ministries of Health, public institutions and academia in the countries of these regions.
During the 12th Brazilian Congress of Public Health, the ICEH offered a pre-congress short course on health equity measurements with a focus on maternal and child health. This workshop occurred in August, 2018 at the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). Fernando Wehrmeister, Inacio Crochemore da Silva, Carolina Coll and Marilia Mesenburg were responsible for organizing the short course, which included measurements of simple and complex equity metrics for ordered and non-ordered groups. The target participants were Master’s and PhD candidates, although health services personnel also participated in the short-course.
With the objective to introduce the participants to applying an equity lens to data analysis, the ICEH researchers Aluísio Barros and Inacio Crochemore took part in the Countdown to 2030 workshop "Strengthening Analysis and Evidence for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH&N)". The event was held in Saly, Senegal, in March, 2018 with a collaborative effort between WAHO, the World Health Organization (WHO), Unicef, United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA) and APHRC together with the ICEH and Countdown to 2030 initiative. Equity sessions included complex measures of inequalities applied to coverage indicators calculated through DHS and MICS surveys. Participants were personnel from Ministries of Health, the public sector and academia.
In December, 2017 the “Analytical workshop on the continuum of care for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Nutrition” took place in Nairobi, Kenya. Aluísio Barros, from the ICEH, participated as co-organizer of the workshop and facilitator for equity sessions during the event. Personnel from Ministries of Health, academics and the public sector were among the target participants for the workshop, aimed at increasing the ability to analyze and interpret data with an equity focus.
During May, 2017, the ICEH received researchers and Ministry of Health personnel to discuss ethnic inequalities in RMNCH in Latin America. The aim of the workshop was to discuss how to analyze data disaggregated by ethnic status, and how to analyze inequality by this stratifier. The activity included a theoretical and practical session on the topic organized by the ICEH directors Cesar Victora and Aluísio Barros and the researchers Marilia Mesenburg and Maria Clara Restrepo. The entire ICEH team participated as facilitators during the practical sessions.
As part of the pre-congress activities in the 10th Brazilian Epidemiology Congress, the ICEH offered a short course on health equity measurement. The course was organized by the ICEH researchers Aluísio Barros, Fernando Wehrmeister, Inacio Crochemore da Silva and Luis Paulo Vidaletti and included data from the DHS and MICS surveys. The topics covered included simple and complex measures of inequalities, strategies to monitor progress in indicators and a discussion of time trend analysis. The target participants included Master’s and PhD candidates, while health services personnel also participated in the activity.
During November, 2016, the ICEH and the Universidad de Antioquia co-organized a workshop on measuring inequalities in RMNCH, held in Medellin, Colombia. The workshop focused on monitoring health coverage and equity in RMNCH. Attendees included service managers, policy makers, and researchers at federal or state health agencies, international organizations, or academic institutions from 11 countries in Latin America. The topics of the workshop included how to construct an indicator, how to choose the stratifiers to analyze, simple and complex measures of inequalities, and monitoring and time trend analyses. Members of the ICEH team present included the directors Cesar Victora and Aluísio Barros and the researchers Maria Clara Restrepo, Fernando Wehrmeister and Leonardo Ferreira.
In June, 2013, representatives from eight countries participated in a week-long scientific program organized entirely by the ICEH (Cesar Victora, Aluisio Barros, Maria Clara Restrepo, Fernando Wehrmeister, Giovanny França and Leonardo Ferreira). The workshop included daily theoretical and practical sessions on data analysis with a focus on equity and health coverage. The scientific-technical cooperation was provided to eight countries - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Peru - and was aimed at enabling researchers and national health institutions to improve the monitoring of interventions toward the achievement of Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, signed in 2010 by the United Nations member states to reduce the mortality of children under five years and improve the health of women during pregnancy.