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This project verifies and validates a low-cost device for urine-based screening for human papillomavirus, the cause of most cervical cancers, with an initial focus on Ghana. Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among women in Ghana, yet fewer than five percent of eligible women have been screened, held back by the cost of Pap smears, limited access to trained clinicians, and discomfort with invasive pelvic exams. The device collects and analyzes the first 20 milliliters of urine for HPV DNA, which could yield HPV detection rates comparable to self-swabbing, while letting women collect their own sample in their usual setting. Developed with clinical partners at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra, Ghana, and University of Michigan engineering students, the reusable device is designed to be more economical, non-invasive, and accessible than the standard of care, with the potential to expand screening toward the World Health Organization's 2030 goal.

This project pilots a coordinated platform to connect Ghana's health research institutions and tie their work more directly to improving care. Research in Ghana spans health services divisions, universities, professional colleges and hospitals, but is often loosely coordinated and only weakly linked to service delivery. Decades of University of Michigan and Ghana collaborations, beginning in obstetrics and gynecology and growing across emergency medicine, maternal and newborn health, surgery and pathology, have been fruitful but similarly fragmented. In the Bono East region, the team co-leads assessments of research capacity, data for decision-making, clinical education and training, and community health needs, engaging leaders across Ghanaian institutions. The pilot aligns with the World Health Organization's Networks of Practice model and lays the groundwork for a larger demonstration platform that fosters interdisciplinary, evidence-driven improvements in health.

This project advances dementia and healthy aging research in urban Zambia, building on the Zambian Cohort for Healthy Aging and Dementia partnership between the University of Michigan and Ciheb Zambia. Formed in 2023 to assess the feasibility of community-based dementia studies, the team trained community healthcare workers who have since visited more than 6,000 households and enrolled hundreds of older adults, with neuropsychologists assessing cognitive status using locally validated norms. This project extends that foundation to deepen understanding of dementia prevalence, risk and care needs in Lusaka communities, combining Michigan expertise in neurology, biostatistics and nursing with Zambian clinical, neuropsychological and community leadership. Community healthcare workers remain central to data collection, community education and dissemination, strengthening local capacity to study and respond to dementia as Zambia's population ages.

This project co-designs a locally informed surveillance platform to track and respond to the health impacts of extreme weather in Uganda. Communities along Lake Victoria in the Rakai region are experiencing increased flooding and rising water levels, and the collaboration builds on three decades of infrastructure the Rakai Health and Sciences Program developed for HIV surveillance. Working with community members, the team modifies the existing sampling scheme to capture social, geographic and seasonal variation in exposure to climate stressors, aligns surveys with established data repositories, creates new climate and health survey modules, and incorporates local climate stations and remotely sensed data. Michigan expertise in epidemiology, climate science and environmental sustainability joins Ugandan leadership to build a rich data resource that measures vulnerability and adaptive capacity, engages policymakers, and seeds larger-scale climate and health research.