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research. Since ascertainment of cause of
death is a particularly difficult problem in
low- and middle-income countries, we use
and compare different approaches to assign
the most likely cause of deat.
The first series of projects are:
›› Pattern of cause-specific childhood
mortality in a malaria endemic area of
Burkina Faso
›› Seasonal patterns in overall and malaria
mortality
›› Ascertainment of cause of death via
verbal autopsy: Physician coding versus
computer assisted interpreting of verbal
autopsies (INTER-VA)
In these projects, data from the Nouna
HDSS are the basis.
The second series of projects are
collabora-
tive projects with the group of Olaf Müller,
the CRSN, and several partners in Africa and
Europe.
›› Effects of insecticide-treated bednets
during early infancy
›› OPTIMUNIZE - Optimising the impact
and cost-effectiveness of child health
intervention programmes of vaccines and
micronutrients in low-income countries.
Other projects:
INTREC
is an EU-funded project entitled
"Building sustainable capacity for research
for health in low- and its determinants
in low- and middle-income countries"
.
Running drom 2012 to 2017, it aims at de-
veloping sustainable capacity by providing
state-of-the-art region-specific training for
young researchers, and educating decision
makers on social determinants of health.
The project
"Estimating lung cancer death
in countries with incomplete or less reliable
death statistics"
is funded by the German
Research Foundation and led by Volker
Winkler. We have developed models which
allow estimation of lung cancer deaths
indirectly, using smoking prevalence data,
effect estimates from other studies and
population figures.
Migrant studies /
social epidemiology
Project team:
Heiko Becher, Volker Winkler, Ema Kuhrs,
Heiko Zimmermann, Andreas Deckert,
Tabeth Mashayamombe, Anna Keib
External Collaboration:
Ari Paltiel, Jerusalem, Israel; The National
Cohort, Germany
For about ten years, our unit has been
investigating the mortality patterns of
migrants from the former Soviet Union.
We have set up two large register based
cohort studies of about 50,000 individuals
in total and have investigated the mortality
pattern, which showed several remarkable
characteristics. The low mortality from car-
diovascular disease in particular gave rise
to several further studies, such as a nested
case-control study within this cohort where
individual information was collected by
personal interview, and a prospective
cohort study in the area of Augsburg for
which cohort recruitment is currently
ongoing. Our unit is also involved since the
initial planning phases for one of the largest
Members of the unit epidemiology and biostatistics