Mr Lethu Kapueja, Co-Director of the Wits Health Hubb and affiliated researcher at CoE-HUMAN secures support from the Industrial Development Corporation Social Employment Fund

The project, entitled: The Local Health Investment Network Project seeks to develop 1000 job opportunities for youth and adults currently not in employment, education, or training (NEET) and funded by the Presidency’s Social Employment Fund (SEF). After an application process that started in December 2021, and culminated in March 2022, Mr Kapueja, together with The Village Well and Wits Health Consortium secured a R16.5 million grant to deliver the project, partnering with The Village Well NGO to employ up to 1000 health volunteers in the City of Johannesburg, City of Matlosana and Rustenburg Local Municipality in the North West Province for short term work in health promotion in their local communities. This model is very different from the usual Youth Employment Initiative learnership, which typically lasts 12 months and engages youth in practical experiences and a recognised qualification, typically at NQF level 3-5.

The project inception was inspired by the challenges experienced in communities, especially in community health work, when health promotion activities fall to community volunteers. With inadequate resource and support, volunteers who receive training ultimately may end up in worse situations than when they started, leaving gaps in community health support and further economic marginalisation of the intended project beneficiaries. This loss of investment negatively affects the communities they serve and the local health system; not to mention the enormous negative impact on household incomes of volunteers. Health promotion at the individual and community level frequently experiences major setbacks in these instances.

The SEF fund supports the paid employment of those local health volunteers who may have been disengaged, aiming to relaunch these community health workers within local communities to strengthen local health systems, whilst improve youth employment and health behaviour change. Through the creation of local area health investment networks (LHIN) made up of representatives from the community, public and private sectors to promote support of health workers, the project will contribute to sustainable community health work and improved status of project beneficiaries. It is envisaged that a network of SEF-supported health promoters can improve linkage to care for community members in need of health services.

Participants will receive short-term accredited training in home-based care, research skills training, community-based planning with local health stakeholders and conduct health promotion activities in households and through community events. Alongside this, researcher Dr Ware, has submitted a Strategic Grant Application to the CoE-HUMAN to collect data to test how this experience in community health work impacts the health of the participants themselves in comparison to other Youth Employment Initiatives.

The project is focused on developing health promotion skills and activating youth as agents of change in their community’s health. Towards this end, over the 9 months the participants will:

 Be provided with a meaningful professional work experience, training and a part qualification in the health and care economy,

 Be tracked to understand their health decision making experience and changes in health awareness,

 Help in expanding community access to health information, and

 Build community solidarity in organizations that promote healthier choices.

As an implementation science initiative, the LHIN project seeks to understand the impact of research within real world conditions. Therefore, Kapueja’s research activity in this project will focus on the methods and strategies that enable the uptake of evidence-based practice into public health policy and programs that focus on youth health. However, the research will also include investigating practices that seek to make community health work more impactful and sustainable.

Quantitative Statistics Learning Resources

A collaboration between the CoE-HUMAN and the MRC/Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit (DPHRU) led by Dr Lukhanyo Nyati have been running monthly webinars on different aspects of quantitative data analysis in health and social research to support learning and encourage methodological discussions. The series (June to November 2022) covers basic to advanced topics, such as hypothesis testing, longitudinal data analysis, data reduction methods, and meta-analysis – presented by experts within respective fields. On average the sessions have attracted between 60 and 90 participants. Attendees have included students from South African Universities and other African countries, health researchers from across the world, and even some policymakers and other stakeholders from the CoE-HUMAN’s wide networks. Three learning resources are available on the CoE-HUMAN website and YouTube Channel.

Statistical Learning Fast Track Series