Several of Global Health Trials' Regional Faculties have implemented exceptional, cost-effective blended learning schemes, using a computer room and the Global Health Network's free eLearning courses to create a novel way of building their research teams' skills and knowledge. The Nigerian faculty explain their experiences here, and you can download their "how to" document on the right hand side of the screen, to use at your own site!

21st December 2018 • comment

A Guide to Efficient Trial Management

by The Trial Manager's Network

This Guide to Efficient Trial Management, published by the Trial Manager's Network (UK) and available freely online, is a must for all trial managers or coordinators. This link is for the 6th Edition (2018)

13th May 2018 • comment
11th November 2016 • comment

The TDR Global Competency Framework for Clinical Research is a flexible framework which lists all the competencies that should be demonstrated by a research team to carry out a successful clinical study. It can be used for any research study, regardless of the size of the team and of the study itself. It can help to plan the staffing requirements for a study, to help carry out appraisals of staff, to help individuals plan their career development, and to help to develop educational curricula for research staff. 

3rd November 2016 • comment

This study highlights the utility of rapid ethical assessment prior to clinical trials involving complex procedures and concepts.

23rd March 2016 • comment

This framework describes key components of capacity development, indicators for their success and ways to verify capacity development.

22nd March 2016 • comment

Public Health Degrees.org is a comprehensive search engine designed for students who are interested in learning more about Public Health and Health Sciences programs around the United States.

14th March 2016 • comment

New INTERGROWTH-21st Postnatal Growth Standards charts for individual measurements of length, weight, head circumference, as well as a combined standards chart for length, weight and head circumference are now available for download here.

9th November 2015 • comment

The CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) 2010 guideline is intended to improve the reporting of parallel-group randomized controlled trial (RCT), enabling readers to understand a trial's design, conduct, analysis and interpretation, and to assess the validity of its results. This can only be achieved through complete adherence and transparency by authors. This series explores how an abstract can be improved through use of the CONSORT guidelines.

2nd November 2015 • comment

The first international stnadards for monitroing the growth of preterm babies have now been published in the Lancet Global Health (October 2015). 

14th October 2015 • comment

Evidence shows that in many African regions, including Ghana, malaria is massively over-diagnosed. This means that patients who are not diagnosed with malaria by tests that identify malaria parasites in the blood are still considered to have the disease and therefore receive anti-malarial treatment.

10th September 2015 • comment

Training manuals from REACT study in Cameroon. REACT Cameroon designed six training modules to support the introduction of malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). The manuals were used to train health workers at government and mission hospitals and health centres. The six modules are presented in two manuals

20th August 2015 • comment

Scientific title: A cost-effectiveness analysis of provider interventions to improve health worker practice in providing treatment for uncomplicated malaria in Cameroon. Testing patients before prescribing medication is important, and should ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment. This is important because unnecessary and inappropriate treatment has costs –incurred by patients, but also governments and donors working to control malaria.

20th August 2015 • comment

The TACT training manuals and patient leaflet were designed to support the use of malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). Here we provide Trainer/Trainee manuals in English and French, and visual patient information sheets in English, French and Swahili. 

7th August 2015 • comment

Grant applications differ substantially depending on the individual funding organisation, and each funding organisation has its own organisational aims, which are important to understand when you are considering which grant to apply to. In this article we provide practical tips and information for writing grant applications, which can be applied to grant applications of all sorts, from fellowships to large funding applications.

7th July 2015 • comment

Fetal Growth Standards for ultrasound measurements of head circumference (HC), bi-parietal diameter (BPD), occipito-frontal diameter (OFD), femur length (FL) and abdominal circumference (AC) are now available for download. For information about how to perform these measurements, or for other information on standards in ultrasound imaging, please see the ultrasound training toolkit.

11th June 2015 • comment

Job interviews can be intimidating, but simply preparing well can make the difference between succeeding or failing, regardless of how nervous you are. In this article we pull together advice on how to prepare for job interviews and how to know what questions you’ll be asked. 

2nd June 2015 • comment
4th May 2015 • comment

Links to the SPIRIT guidelines for protocol development and information about these guidelines - all free and open access.

31st March 2015 • comment

Discussing the study protocol part 2

by D. Shamley, N.Kramer, E.Allen, L.Workman, W.Smythe, C.Ovenstone, C.Reddy
30th January 2015 • comment

On the 19th September 2014, Global Health Trials Southern Africa held its Annual Faculty Meeting, themed Clinical Trial Site Project Management. You can download the presentations from the talk and leave feedback here.

30th October 2014 • comment

This protocol outlines the technique for taking a pregnant woman's blood pressure. http://www.medscinet.net/Intergrowth/patientinfodocs/BP%20protocol.pdf

25th April 2014 • comment

The aim of this manual is to ensure all trained ultrasonographers are familiar with the standardized way crown-rump length measurements should be taken for the purposes of using the INTERGROWTH-21st fetal growth standards. http://www.medscinet.net/Intergrowth/patientinfodocs/CRLstandardisation_Website.pdf

25th April 2014 • comment

This manual details the technique for assessing sleep-wake cycles in children. http://www.medscinet.net/Intergrowth/patientinfodocs/Sleep-wake%20cycle%20assessment%20manual%20July%202014.pdf

25th April 2014 • comment
23rd July 2013 • comment

Despite published guidance on writing the abstract in the PRISMA Statement guiding the reporting of systematic reviews in general and elsewhere, evaluations show that reporting of systematic reviews in journal and conference abstracts is poor. Teh authors developed consensus-based reporting guidelines as an extension to the PRISMA Statement on good reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in abstracts.

10th April 2013 • comment

Research misconduct is a global problem as research is a global activity. Wherever there is human activity there is misconduct, but we lack reliable data on the extent and distribution of research misconduct. This PLoS paper seeks to illustrate some examples of researsch misconduct in LMICs.

3rd April 2013 • comment

In this article, the authors illustrate five basic statistical concepts that can significantly impact the interpretation of the medical literature and its application to the care of patients, drawing examples from the vaccine literature: (i) consider clinical and statistical significance separately, (ii) evaluate absolute risks rather than relative risks, (iii) examine confidence intervals rather than p values, (iv) use caution when considering isolated significant p values in the setting of multiple testing, and (v) keep in mind that statistically nonsignificant results may not exclude clinically important benefits or harms.

26th March 2013 • comment

Transnational Working Group on Data management of the ECRIN, the European Clinical Research Infrastructures Network, present recommendations for quality and harmonisation for data management. In addition good data management practices in general are identified.

20th February 2013 • comment

This publication discsusses whether or not open-source clinical trial data management will improve the likelihood that good clinical trials are conducted in resource-constrained settings.

25th January 2013 • comment

This guidance article aims to provide a fully comprehensive, pragmatic guide for researchers of all roles, but especially ethics reviewers, to explain the details of each type of ethics review. The article is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese, and has been kindly provided by www.ctmagnifier.org.

1st January 2013 • comment

Assessing the quality of informed consent in a resource-limited setting: A cross-sectional study

by Ronald Kiguba, Paul Kutyabami, Stephen Kiwuwa, Elly Katabira, Nelson K Sewankambo

The process of obtaining informed consent continues to be a contentious issue in clinical and public health research carried out in resource-limited settings. We sought to evaluate this process among human research participants in randomly selected active research studies approved by the School of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee at the College of Health Sciences, Makerere University.

6th September 2012 • comment

A range of downloadable templates and tools for Clinical Research, including monitoring checklists, budget spreadsheets, informed consent forms, SOPs and so on.

9th August 2012 • comment

This article is an introduction to cluster randomised trials.

23rd July 2012 • comment
19th July 2012 • comment

This article explains the process of data management operations within clinical trials from start to finish.

17th January 2012 • comment

The Draft Statement/Guidelines for Disaster Research

by Arthula Sumathipala, Aamir Jafarey, Leonardo de Castro, Aasim Ahmad, Darryl Marcer, Sandya Srinivasan, Nandini K. Kumar, Slemen Sutaryo, Anant Bhan, Dananyaja Wadeyaratne, Sriyakanthi Beneragama, Chandrani Jayasekera, Sarath Edirisingha, Chesmal Siriwardhana, Sisira Siribaddana

These guidelines were developed following a Working Group on Disaster Research and Ethics (WGDRE) meeting in 2007 with the aim of developing ethical guidelines which would be applicable to post-disaster research, partiuclarly that performed in the developing world. We welcome any feedback from members.

24th October 2011 • comment

It is a recommendation of some IRB/ECs that back translation is included as a necessary step for the translation of some clinical trial documentation, including informed consent documents. This article explains the reasons for back translation, and takes you through how to effectively perform this step, including explaining how to find a suitable translator for the task.

9th June 2011 • comment

During the setting up of our trial in Cameroon we met several operational issues that we needed to overcome. For some of these issues we developed some tools and we have made them available here so that other research groups can use them in their clinical trials.

13th May 2011 • comment

Ethics in global health research

by M. Parker, S. Bull

This articles explores some of the ethical issues arising in the context of collaborative global health research networks involving partners in developing and developed countries.

11th February 2011 • comment

An article about a workshop that assessed ethical review and informed consent in vulnerable populations. This article aims to prompt a debate leading to better guiding principles on health research in constrained settings

24th January 2011 • comment

The WHO invite comments on these new guidelines: Standards and Operational Guidance for Ethics Review of Health-Related Research with Human Participants

5th January 2011 • comment

A set of 4 consent templates for clinical trials, interview studies, observation studies and sampling only studies.

29th November 2010 • comment

An overview on trial registration. Here you can find out why trials need to be registered and what the difference is between all the registries - and how to register your study.

1st November 2010 • comment

This article was written by a researcher from Sri Lanka and presents a very helpful overview on Biomedical Ethics. This article will be helpful to all levels of research staff and others who might want an accessible overview

26th October 2010 • comment

Reciprocal or in-house monitoring schemes could be an alternative to expensive out-sourcing. Read on to find out more.

21st November 2009 • comment

The site initiation process is important as it ensures that all the logistics are organised and the site is ready to begin recruiting subjects.

21st November 2009 • comment

The informed consent process is fundamental to ensuring that clinical trials are conducted ethically. This article outlines some issues to consider.

21st November 2009 • comment