Multidisciplinary and mixed methods research training

Sharon Fonn and ....

Multidisciplinary and mixed methods research training in Africa the experience of CARTA

Making an impact on population health in Africa requires a range of interventions that addresses the complex and often intersectoral determinants of health, health service use and health systems development. Responding to this need requires that theories and methods from a range of disciplines need to be applied in order to both understand health and develop interventions that can address population health improvements. At least part of the solution lies in scholars being able to work in a multidisciplinary  way and being able to appreciate the theoretical underpinnings and methods of those disciplines that can contribute to improving population health in Africa. CARTA an African based, African lead consortium aims to develop cohorts of scholars in Africa who are able to work across disciplines. In this article we describe the way in which we have developed training that provides PhD candidates with an appreciation of disciplines beyond that in which they are doing their PhD. We describe the disciplinary background of the PhD fellows enrolled in CARTA and the disciplinary backgrounds of the CARTA faculty to assess the degree to which we have managed to attract a diverse range of disciplines into the CARTA programme; we use the evaluation data collected with 3 cohorts of students to assess the degree to which this approach is acceptable to them; we describe and review the research topics and methods that the at the PhD fellows have chosen for their PhD research to assess the degree to which this multidisciplinary and training has influenced their research.