“Seeing is believing” is how the exceptional presentations at the Inaugural Atoifi Health Research Symposium were described by Professor Ernest Hunter, Professor of Psychiatry from James Cook University (JCU).
Professor Hunter joined chiefs from Kwaio, community leaders, Ministry of Health, Provincial Health and international researchers from Papua New Guinea and Australia at the Symposium held at Atoifi Adventist Hospital on Thursday 12 March, 2015. Solomon Islands researchers presented on studies undertaken by the Atoifi Health Research Group which included: spectacular declines in malaria rates in the East Kawio; community and hospital responses to tuberculosis; village involvement in reducing intestinal parasites; medicinal rainforest plants; primary health care responses to recent outbreaks of measles and bloody diarrhoea and mental health effects of climate change.
Professor Sarah Larkins, Dean of Research for the College of Medicine at JCU told the researchers who had presented that they should be very proud of the quality of their work. “Your presentations today were at a standard that they could be presented anywhere in the world”, she said.
The most heartfelt response to the presentations, however, came from Chief John Laete’esafi, who spoke on behalf of the chiefs of East Kwaio. He stood and explained how the process of community-based research since 2009 had changed the way health was understood in his community and how health services were now responding to the needs of people from the mountains. He told those gathered that because of the community-based research the relationship with the Hospital, which had been tense in the past, has changed and Kwaio people and Atoifi Hospital were now partners.
Mr Humpress Harrington, Lead Investigator of the WHO Capacity Building grant that has funded much of the work, opened and closed the Symposium with a report of research capacity strengthening activities and a final, open session to discuss where-to-next. A large whiteboard was filled with ideas, with Humpress exclaiming, “We need to write more grants, there is more research to be done!”
The week following the Symposium, researchers from Solomon Islands and Australia worked together to progress research projects, community development water and sanitation projects that have been informed research and a biodiversity projects with the Kwainaa’isi Cultural Centre. Other researchers worked on manuscripts to ensure their research is written-up and widely available for people across the Pacific and beyond (see research articles at http://www.atoifiresearch.org.sb/resources).
The Symposium Proceedings and Book of Abstracts is now available on the Atoifi Health Research Group website, along with PowerPoint presentations shared by each of the researchers: http://www.atoifiresearch.org.sb/node/92
The next research capacity strengthening workshop is scheduled for July 2015. For more information please contact the lead facilitators for this workshop: Mrs Rowena Asugeni rowenaasugeni@gmail.com or Mr Humpress Harrington humpress.harington@gmail.com
Photos: (L) The attendees of the Atoifi Health Research Symposium celebrate at the end of a successful day; (R) The Symposium Organising Committee (photos supplied by Benjamin Speare)
Story by Michelle Redman-MacLaren
