The National Institutes of Health is investing about $74.5 million over five years to advance data science, catalyze innovation, and spur health discoveries across Africa. Under your new Leveraging Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa (DS-I Africa) program, the NIH is making 19 awards to support research and training activities. DS-I Africa is an NIH Common Fund program supported by the Office of the Director and 11 NIH institutes, centers, and offices.
The awards will establish a consortium consisting of a data science platform and coordination centre, seven research centres, seven data science research training programmes, and four projects focused on studying the ethical, legal and social implications of data science research. Awardees have a strong network of partnerships across the African continent and in the United States, including numerous national health ministries, non-governmental organizations, corporations, and other academic institutions.
“This initiative has generated enormous enthusiasm across all sectors of Africa’s biomedical research community,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, MD, Ph.D. “Big data and artificial intelligence have the potential to transform research conduct across the continent, while investing in research training will help support Africa’s future data science leaders and ensure sustainable progress in this promising field.”
The University of Cape Town (UCT) will develop and manage the initiative. open data science platform and coordination center, building on previous NIH investments in UCT’s computing and data capabilities made through the Heredity and Human Health in Africa (H3Africa) programme. UCT will provide a flexible and scalable platform for DS-I Africa researchers, so they can find and access data, select tools and workflows, and execute analyzes through collaborative workspaces. UCT will also manage and support core resources, as well as coordinate the activities of the consortium.
The research centersall led by African institutions, will apply novel approaches to data analytics and artificial intelligence to address critical health issues, including:
- Kenyan scientists will leverage large existing data sets to develop and validate AI models to identify women at risk of poor pregnancy outcomes; and identify adolescents and young healthcare workers at risk for depression and suicidal ideation.
- A center in Nigeria will study SARS-CoV-2 and HIV with the goal of using data to improve pandemic preparedness.
- In Uganda, researchers will advance data science for medical imaging with efforts to improve diagnoses of eye diseases and cervical cancer.
- Nigerian scientists will also study antimicrobial resistance and the dynamics of disease transmission, develop a portable bacterial infection detection tool, and test a potential antimicrobial compound.
- A Cameroon-based project will investigate ways to decrease the burden of surgical injuries and illnesses, as well as improve access to quality surgical care across the continent.
- From a center in South Africa, researchers will study multi-disease morbidity by analyzing clinical and genomic data with the goal of providing useful information to reduce the burden of disease and improve overall health.
- A project in South Africa will develop innovative solutions to mitigate the health impacts of climate change across the region, with initial studies of the clinical outcomes of heat exposure in pregnant women, newborns and people living in urban areas.
He research training programsLeveraging partnerships with US institutions, it will create multi-level curricula to develop critical health data science skills, with options ranging from master’s and doctoral degrees to postdoctoral training and faculty development. A combination of in-person and remote training will be offered to develop skills in multidisciplinary topics such as applied mathematics, biostatistics, epidemiology, clinical informatics, analytics, computational omics, biomedical imaging, artificial intelligence, computational paradigms, computer science and engineering. Students will receive intensive mentoring and participate in hands-on internships to learn how to apply data science concepts in medical and public health areas, including social determinants of health, climate change, food systems, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, health surveillance, injuries, pediatrics, and parasitology.
Recognizing that data science research can uncover potential ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI), the consortium will include dedicated ELSI research addressing these issues. This will include efforts to develop evidence-based, context-specific guidance for the conduct and governance of data science initiatives; evaluate current legal instruments and guidelines to develop new and innovative governance frameworks to support health data science research in Africa; explore legal differences between regions of the continent in the use of data science for health discovery and innovation; and investigate public perceptions and attitudes regarding the use of data science approaches for healthcare along with the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholder groups regarding intellectual property, patents, and commercial use of genomic data in healthcare. Additionally, ELSI research teams will be embedded in the research centers to provide important and timely guidance.
A second phase of the program is being planned encourage more researchers to join the consortium, encourage the formation of new partnerships and address additional capacity development needs. Through the combined efforts of all its initiatives, DS-I Africa aims to use data science to develop solutions to the continent’s most pressing public health problems through a robust ecosystem of new partners from the academic, government and private sectors.
In addition to the Common Fund (CF), the DS-I Africa Awards are supported by the Fogarty International Center (FIC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute of Dental Research and Craniofacial Sciences (NIDCR), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Library of Medicine (NLM), and the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS). The initiative is led by CF, FIC, NIBIB, NIMH and NLM.
More information is available at https://commonfund.nih.gov/AfricaData
Contacts:
About the NIH Common Fund: The NIH Common Fund fosters collaboration and supports a number of exceptionally high-impact trans-NIH programs. Common Fund programs are administered by the Office of Strategic Coordination in the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives in the Office of the Director of the NIH in partnership with NIH institutes, centers, and offices. More information is available on the Common Fund website: https://commonfund.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures of common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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