Research Entities

Research forms an integral component of the School. The main research areas are both strategic and applied, with particular emphasis on research that has relevance to the region.

Agincourt Health and Population Unit surveys approximately 70000 people annually and has a unique dataset describing the changing pattern of rural mortality, non-communicable diseases and nutrition.

Centre for Health Policy (CHP) is a multi-disciplinary research organisation which seeks to contribute to excellence in health policy and health economics research, and to be a critical participant in health policy processes.

Division of Occupational Health, under the leadership of Professor David Rees, who is also the Director, Occupational Medicine and Epidemiology of the National Institute for Occupational Health, offers an MPH and DPH in Occupational Hygiene and a Diploma in Occupational Health. The School has strong links with Sweden's National Institute for Working Life and the University of Birmingham's Institute of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. We also have grants from the University of Michigan's and University of Arizona's Fogarty International Center-funded occupational and environmental health programmes, which offer scholarships to candidates from southern Africa and allows us to play a role as a regional training centre.

Division of Public Oral Health (POH) trains oral hygienists, undergraduate and postgraduate dentistry students and has a Mobile Dental Unit that has provided oral health services to informal settlements around Johannesburg for over a decade. The Mobile Unit treated 2864 patients in 2004. It also has a vigorous research programme in the fields of the oral manifestations of HIV/AIDS, the role of Traditional Practitioners in Oral Health and Health Promotion.

Health Systems Development Unit (HSDU) based in the rural area of Bushbuckridge in the north-east of the country, focuses on primary care nurse training.

Rural AIDS and Development Action Research (RADAR) programme comprises clinical and social intervention research on HIV/AIDS, with an emphasis on developing model approaches that are appropriate and relevant to the rural African context. It is founded on the premise that the HIV epidemic is rooted in biological, behavioural and social processes - reflecting complex and dynamic relationships within countries and between them. Generating an effective response will therefore require a similar diversity of strategies at the level of individuals and populations.

Women's Health Project (WHP) focused on the areas of quality of care, maternal care, termination of pregnancy services (TOP) including medical abortion, cervical cancer, tobacco on women's health, services for survivors of sexual assault, the effect of health sector reforms on reproductive health and rights and the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV. Unfortunately the WHP closed in November due to lack of funding for its outreach activities. The work of the WHP has been merged into the Gender and Health Division of the School and only specific activities will continue viz. health sector reforms and sexual and reproductive health as well as incorporating gender and sexual and reproductive rights and health into the SPH's curriculum. The Quality Maternal Care Project and the Resource Centre has been absorbed into the School.

Health Promotion Unit In 2006/7 inequalities and imbalances in health status and health service provision still impact severely on the inner city and peri urban communities in which the Health Promotion Unit (HPU) is involved. The HPU addressed these issues through its teaching, training, research and community programmes. It has also established new links and strengthened and extended its local, national and international collaborative networks and has clearly demonstrated the value of partnerships in addressing the determinants of health.