Doctoral candidate awarded grant to promote Environmental Health in Africa

Bernard Appiah, M.S., doctoral candidate at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, was awarded a $45,000 grant from the Wellcome Trust’s International Engagement Awards Committee for a public engagement project regarding promoting environmental health reporting in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This grant, entitled “Scientists and Journalists Networked for Public Engagement on Environmental Health,” will support an 18-month training and networking project in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda beginning September 2013.

Appiah will interview environmental health researchers, science journalists and the general public to determine what their needs are and where they are successful regarding communicating environmental health issues in the mass media. He will conduct two-day training sessions for researchers and journalists in the three countries who will actively engage with the public to provide environmental health education and the opportunity for continuous dialogue. Appiah and colleagues in the three countries will also test the feasibility of having an online discussion forum for the trainees.

The environmental health researchers will be selected from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana; Egerton University, Kenya; and Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda.