Cardiovascular Research Training In Nigeria (CeRTIN)

About This Grant

PROJECT ABSTRACT Globally, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) pose a large and growing threat in reducing morbidity and mortality in the US and countries in Africa, including Nigeria. Many effective interventions to decrease CVD and models of care exist, but low implementation of recommended public health and clinical cardiovascular interventions reduced their potential. These align with priorities of the US government and Make America Healthy Again towards building a healthier and stronger America. Resource limited setting in United States including Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri and low-to-middle-income countries (LMICs) including Nigeria generally have higher age-standardized incidence, prevalence, and case fatality rates from hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. As the US need to ”do more with less”, especially in rural and other resource-limited contexts, practical lessons on strategies and policies to improve cardiovascular health and health care from countries like Nigeria can be particularly useful representing efficient places to rapidly understand and evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of strategies to improve the detection, prevention, treatment, and control of cardiovascular disease. However, to achieve this goal, Nigeria needs to increase the number of Nigerian investigators, early-stage investigators, and trainees with the necessary skills, training, and experiences to implement and build upon this plan to improve cardiovascular health and patient-centered care able to conduct the needed research on the ground. In this grant, we propose to strengthen implementation science, clinical trial, and patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) capacity within the University of Abuja, University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, and their partners. Implementation science is critical to rapidly implement evidence-based interventions into practice and create the insights needed to adapt to US settings. Trainees will remain or return to build this need capacity to support this research needed to identify lessons for improving the US infrastructure and implementation for resource-limited settings in the US such as rural and other resource constrained settings. PCOR also ensures that the research results in strategies which ensure people-centered effective care. The program also emphasizes reciprocal learning and has already and will continue to produce evidence needed to address the implementation gap in CVD prevention and treatment in the US and reduce preventable morbidity and mortality. Specific examples include includes task shifting/task sharing for lower cost hypertension care, single pill combination blood pressure lowering medications, and home visiting programs for women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Our novel, multidisciplinary training program will ensure the research capacity in Nigeria needed to support work to accelerate achieving goals of a healthier population in the US and globally.