Research Platform

BIRHAN Field Site

Located in Amhara Region, Ethiopia the BIRHAN field site encompasses approximately 80,000 people living in 20,000 households in 16 villages in rural Ethiopia. Linking community and facility data, the site spans two woredas (one highland and one lowland woreda) and includes three hospitals and five health centers. We have collected routine health and demographic data and longitudinal maternal and child health data on exposures and health outcomes throughout the site providing MNCH evidence for the FMOH and policy makers Ethiopia.

Birhan field site mapClick here to download a map of the Birhan field site map!

Lowlands in Amhara Region Mountains in Amhara Region

Hospitals

St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College

SPHMMC is a HaSET partner and serves as the host of the Birhan sentinel field site. SPHMMC trains health care professionals, provides tertiary referral hospital care, and conducts research to meet the demands of Ethiopia. In addition to the Birhan field site, its high load tertiary hospital and catchment health centers are also excellent setups for facility-based maternal and child health research. In Ethiopia, SPHMMC works within the HaSET platform on routine demographic data collection, data collection on MNCH exposures and outcomes, and maintenance of field data systems. SPHMMC also contributes to data analysis and dissemination of results and findings to inform programs and policies in Ethiopia. SPHMMC provides office space and logistics support for study operations in Ethiopia and directly employs and oversees 122 local staff (including data collectors and supervisors at the sentinel field site).

Debre Birhan Hospital

Debre Birhan Hospital is the referral hospital in the HaSET study area. The hospital and its affiliated health centers provide prenatal and delivery services to an estimated catchment population of 2.4 million. The hospital sees approximately 300 deliveries per month and supports active KMC implementation. Debre Birhan Hospital also has a 23 bed NICU with 67-78 admissions per month and a lab facility, including an anti-retroviral therapy room, blood bank, chemistry, and microbiology labs.

Lab

Ethiopian Public Health Institute

EPHI logo

The Ethiopian Public Health Institute laboratory’s mission is to improve the quality of health care service by establishing a quality laboratory system and building the capacity of national and regional clinical and public health reference laboratories. The HaSET program works with EPHI’s laboratory infrastructure to conduct the laboratory-based portion of our research.