Research

Learn more about the current and past research conducted at the Center for Global Health Pediatrics.

Current Programs

Ugandan Pediatric Resident Exchange

The Center for Global Pediatric Health currently runs a highly successful residency exchange program with Tanzania, providing visiting residents with four-week clinical rotations at Northwestern and Lurie Children’s. Alumni of this program have gone on to secure competitive grants, publish research, and meaningfully improve pediatric subspecialty care in their home communities. Building on this proven model, the Center is launching a parallel program for residents from Makerere University in Uganda, one of Africa’s leading medical schools. With curriculum, mentorship, and clinical placements already established, this support covers travel and living expenses for Ugandan residents during their four-week rotations. Support for this program provides transformative training experiences that strengthen pediatric care capacity across Uganda.

Travel Support for Pediatric Acute Care Simulation Training in Tanzania

PI: Colleen Fant, MD, MPH

Simulation-based training is a cornerstone of medical education in high-resource settings, giving clinicians essential experience managing emergencies and complex pediatric cases. Such training is rarely available in low-resource environments. To close this gap, the Center for Global Pediatric Health has developed a new pediatric acute care simulation program for residents in Tanzania and secured the necessary equipment for in-country use. The remaining barrier is funding to bring additional physician and nurse educators to Tanzania to deliver hands-on training. This support allows the center to send five instructors, expand the number of residents who can participate, and ensure the ideal teacher-to-learner ratio that leads to stronger clinical skills and better outcomes for acutely ill children.

Simulation Education to Improve Pediatric Care at Bugando Medical Center in Mwanza, Tanzania
Sherman Fairchild Foundation

PI: Colleen Fant, MD, MPH

Project Period: September 2025 to August 2026

In 2000, the United Nations identified addressing under-five child mortality as a key development goal. While there have been significant improvements in the last 10-20 years in addressing and reducing child morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income countries, significant pediatric global healthcare inequities continue to persist. There are multiple factors that contribute to this issue; however, one persistent challenge is a lack of practitioners and in turn, limited access to specialty training for those practitioners.

Simulation-based medical education has become standard for physician training globally, but remains in its nascency in sub-Saharan Africa, and specifically, Tanzania where training is lecture and classroom-based followed by observing and participating in patient care without a bridge of observed practice or simulation. Simulation-based medical education allows learners to practice patient scenarios in the simulated environment with feedback and skill mastery without placing patients at risk of harm. Several programs (Helping Babies Breathe and ETAT+) incorporate simulation and have been implemented in East Africa with notable decreases in pediatric mortality.

Faculty at the Center for Global Pediatric Healthcare at the Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health are leaders in the field of pediatric simulation-based medical education. In collaboration with Lurie Children’s Hospital and the Department of Pediatrics at Bugando Medical Center (BMC) in Mwanza, Tanzania, the Center is working to expand pediatric training by bringing simulation-based medical education to residents in Tanzania. Since 2006, faculty have built an educational exchange program for pediatric residents between Chicago and Mwanza. This exchange program provides BMC pediatric residents with many educational opportunities including important simulated case scenarios, building their capacity to care for acutely ill children.

To date, the team has piloted several simulated patient scenarios at BMC to improve training for pediatric residents, including a three-day bootcamp program in pediatric critical care with training on airway management, respiratory emergencies and sepsis in 2024. However, formal simulation-based medical education does not currently exist at BMC. Over the last five years, BMC has increased its pediatric residency program from two to 15 trainees annually. As they grow the capacity of their pediatric residency program and increase the level of critical care services provided for children, BMC leadership has identified formal simulation education as a critical education strategy.

With additional funding, this project proposes utilizing the Center faculty’s established simulation-based medical training programs to build a formal simulation program for the BMC pediatric residency program. This would include: 1) Two annual simulation-based medical education workshops to train local educators in the use of simulation education and support their programmatic leadership, 2) The collaborative development of a core curriculum of simulated scenarios for residents targeting the highest causes of pediatric death at BMC including neonatal resuscitation, respiratory distress, sepsis, and critical care topics, 3) Acquisition of basic simulation supplies including cost-conscious mannequins, tablets to serve as monitors, task trainers and materials, and 4) Faculty support for maintenance of simulation supplies and the facilitation of simulation sessions for residents.

Throughout the implementation and launch of the simulation-based education program, faculty from the Center and BMC will assess local faculty and trainees on knowledge gained, thoughts on the program, as well as trainee performance both at program launch and the one-year mark to evaluate improvement in simulated patient care.

This program will provide critical education to pediatric residents at BMC and build a pipeline for sustainable long-term simulation-based education at BMC, with the goal of positively impacting child morbidity and mortality for years to come.

ENRICH+: Enhancing Novel Research for Inflammation and Cognitive Health among Adolescents

PI: Sahera Dirajlal-Fargo, DO

Project Period: September 2024 to May 2029

The role of Trained Immunity and Mitochondrial dysfunction on Innate immunity in children and adolescents aGing with PHIV (TIMING-PHIV)

PI: Sahera Dirajlal-Fargo, DO

Project Period: March 2022 to February 2027

Intensive Combination Approach to Rollback the HIV Epidemic in Nigerian Youth (iCARE) Plus Effectiveness / Implementation Hybrid Study

The iCARE Plus study will conduct a hybrid type II effectiveness-implementation trial utilizing an EPIS (Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment) framework in youth aged 15-in HIV “hotspots” across Nigeria’s six geopolitically distinct zones. (NICHD, Garofalo)

PI: Rob Garafalo, MD, MPH

Project Period: July 2023 to June 2028