Summary: Pre-Departure Research

June 24th, 2015

Since Memorial Day we have been working together in Boston to prepare for our trip to Zanzibar.  We have done a lot of literature review to learn everything we need to know.  Our literature review has covered a wide range of topics from culture in Zanzibar to comparisons of medical devices.  At first, we tried to learn as much as we could about health issues like postpartum hemorrhaging (PPH) and anemia, and then about existing solutions to these problems.  Throughout these literature reviews we would brainstorm and collect our thoughts in order to figure out viable solutions for maternal health.  The biggest challenges facing these existing solutions are cost-effectiveness and resistance to extreme climate settings.

 

In addition to our literature reviews, we also received lots of advice from people in the area who have had experiences working in Africa.  All of these meetings introduced us to different aspects of our trip and we were able to learn a lot from these meetings.  In some meetings we learned about the different cultural differences that we would experience, in order to ensure that we always act respectfully to our hosts.  We also tried to get familiar with the cuisine by eating at Restaurant Asmara in Cambridge.  They serve homemade Ethiopian cuisine, which is very different from Zanzibari cuisine, but nonetheless is East African.  In our meetings with Dr. Onyango and Dr. Burke, we learned about their experiences working with mothers in sub-Saharan Africa.

One of the more important tasks for our pre-departure planning was planning our course of action for our time while in Zanzibar.  During this process we planned out some of the different questions that we may want to ask, in order to get the best data possible once we get to the island.  We also planned out what our objectives were for each of the six weeks.

On our last day before departure, we presented our learnings and ideas to Dr. Zaman and the rest of the Zaman Lab members.