Harnessing Data Science to Promote Equity in Injury and Surgery for Africa

University Of Buea, Buea

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY The Data Science Center for the Study of Surgery, Injury, and Equity in Africa (DSINE) is an NIH U54- funded research hub located at the University of Buea (Buea) in Cameroon through the current Data Science in Africa (DS-I Africa) initiative (U54TW012087). DSINE Africa is a strategic partnership between the Buea, the University of California (Los Angeles (UCLA) and Berkeley), the Cameroonian Ministry of Public Health, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cameroon, and the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. This coalition is built upon a long-standing collaboration between Buea and UCLA focused on decreasing the burden of surgical diseases in Cameroon and other sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Injuries and other surgically treated diseases comprise a significant burden of disease in SSA, but opportunities for research and funding are lacking. Our work on injury and other surgical emergencies has identified deep inequities that are particularly unmasked in acute care settings. The intersection between injury and equity is our priority area of study, as the inequities revealed by trauma are often symptomatic of larger, systemic, cross-cutting issues. Our mission is to leverage data science to decrease the impact of trauma, surgical disease, and disparities on the population of Cameroon by promoting collaborative research, networking, and capacity building. We are accomplishing this through three Center Cores (Administrative, Capacity Building, and Data Management and Analysis Cores). At the heart of D-SINE Africa’s two Research Projects is the Cameroon Trauma Registry (CTR), a 10-hospital, ongoing, centralized trauma data bank that collects data on demographics, context, clinical care, and outcomes for injured patients on approximately 450 patients per month. CTR analysis has revealed that improving access to prehospital care is an important target for reducing injury death, as the few patients who receive prehospital care are more likely to survive their injuries. However, lack of injury mapping capacity is currently a major roadblock to developing a Cameroonian prehospital care system. In this supplement, we propose to leverage the Data Science Africa Consortium to develop a data science solution to this critical barrier. Specifically, this supplement proposes to adapt an existing INFORM application designed to map air quality to an application capable of mapping injury in Cameroon and then to test usability in three candidate reporting populations: commercial drivers, injury exposed communities, and high school students.