Enhancing community-based health assessment, education, and promotion

Dr. Gina Agarwal and the VIP Research Lab are leading two research programs in low-and-middle-income countries (LMIC) funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) through the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD). The Community Health Assessment Program in the Philippines (CHAP-P) is a lay volunteer-led, community-based chronic disease risk assessment and health promotion program to prevent and decrease the impact of diabetes and hypertension in rural communities. The enhanced Community Health Education and Communication (eCHEC) is a research project that aims to enhance and scale-up the Community Health Education and Communication program, which is a multi-pronged health program developed to prevent cholangiocarcinoma.

At the recent GACD Annual Scientific Meeting in the UK, members of the research teams of CHAP-P and eCHEC met to present program updates, discuss next steps, and plan for further strengthening the collaboration between McMaster University, Ateneo de Zamboanga University (Philippines), and Khon Kaen University (Thailand) through future research collaborations.