Public Health Professor Trains Panamanian Health Professionals on HIV-TB Co-Infection Research
Dr. Thenral Mangadu, assistant professor of Public Health Sciences, recently returned to UTEP from a trip to Panama where she and a team of three other U.S. based researchers from Boston University and George Washington University conducted a two-day training session for over 80 healthcare professionals (including nurses, social workers, administrators and physicians) from three Panamanian provinces on HIV-TB coinfection and challenges in adherence, nutrition and community-based partnerships. “The International Seminar for multidisciplinary update on the role of nutrition in HIV and Tuberculosis,” held March 22-23, 2018 was organized by INDICASAT, UTEP’s MHIRT partners, SENACYT, and Ministry of Health of Panama. Drs. Goodridge and Cubilla from INDICASAT were instrumental in the organization of this training.
Training topics included research methods, principles of participant recruitment, community placed research, and social determinants of health related to TB-HIV coinfection with a specific focus on issues faced by minority communities in resource-poor settings. Specifically, Dr. Mangadu shared strategies to implement community-academic partnerships for interdisciplinary research and the CBPR models implemented by her core teams in minority communities in the US-Mexico border region. Training participants included technical and medical directors, law enforcement, and health promotion directors from three provinces in Panama who expressed high levels of interest in implementing CBPR strategies implemented by Dr. Mangadu’s CAPHSR core teams in the US-Mexico border region.
Potential future collaborations explored include interdisciplinary research collaborations to address HIV-TB coinfections in the US and in Panama with community based organizations, governmental organizations and health care providers. Dr. Managdu and Dr. Goodridge, along with in-country partners, will be conducting CBPR and health promotion related to TB-HIV coinfection in the Ministry of Health clinics in Colon City in summer 2018 with potential expansion of research in the Cocle Province.