ADDIS ABABA – May 26/2023 (EPHI/NIPN) – The four-day training conducted under the theme “Basic STATA - Using Health and Nutrition Data” wound up here yesterday, 25 May 2023. Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), the National Information Platforms for Nutrition (NIPN), and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) jointly organized this training, which was given to public health professionals drawn from various corners of the country.
Training organizing body said that the training was given to the researchers and public health professionals with the belief that they would upgrade their capacity for analyzing surveys and data in such a way that they could use them to generate convincing evidence.
Various important issues that enable trainees to reinforce their capacity to generate high-quality evidence on nutrition were discussed during the course of the four days of training. These include, among others, powerful statistical software, techniques for data management, statistical modeling, and the interpretation of results. The trainers, drawn from EPHI/ NIPN, and IFPRI, said that the trainees have gone a step ahead in generating evidence to make informed decisions that will ultimately impact public health positively.
One of the organizers, Gebretsadik Keleb, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer with NIPN/EPHI, said that the training was designed to contribute to improving public health outcomes in Ethiopia and empower PhD students to complete their studies effectively. Speaking of the commitments of the training organizing bodies, Gebretsadik said that NIPN, EPHI, and IFPRI have come in unison to support researchers, public health professionals, and PhD candidates to enhance their research capabilities in the field of nutrition. “Such capacity building training serves as bedrock for future research and policy development in the country,” Gebretsadik said.
Researchers, public health professionals, PhD students, drawn from Regional Public Health Institutions, universities, the EPHI, and NIPN, forwarded views regarding the training. Some said that such intensive and valuable subjects should not have been bounded in four days. Others reflected their views saying that they gained basic knowledge on how to use data to generate evidence.
Birtukan Shiferaw is one of the researchers who attended the four-day training given on the premises of EPHI. Birtukan, a research officer, has been serving at Amhara Public Health Institute, Dessie Branch for the last five years. She said the “data analysis - software training” has enabled her to think cautiously about using the accumulated data in her office.
Birtukan said that she got basic ideas on using and interpreting data. “There are data gathered a long time ago. I have got ideas on how to come up with evidence by using these data properly,” Birtukan said.
Data managers and researchers from EPHI, IFPRI, NIPN, and the Food Science and Nutrition Research Directorate (FSNRD) gave the training to researchers and PhD candidates numbering 20. (EPHI/NIPN).
