Mobility and continuity of chronic disease care amongst forcibly displaced persons (CONTINUITY)

University of Copenhagen

Emmanuel Raju, Associate Professor
Tania Dræbel, Postdoc
Bishal Gyawali, Postdoc
Dan Wolf Meyrowitsch, Associate Professor
Susan Whyte, Professor
Ib Christian Bygbjerg, Professor
Flemming Konradsen, Professor
Morten Skovdal, Professor
Morten Mechlenburg Nørulf, Communication officer
Caroline Clemens Egeland, Senior consultant

Makarere University

David Kyaddondo, Senior lecturer and PI
Rita Nankanjako, Postdoc
Esther Nanfuka, Postdoc
Christopher Orach, Researcher
Christine Nalwadda, Researcher
Kellen Nyamurungi, Researcher
Roy William Mayega, Researcher

South Sudan Center for Strategic and Policy Studies (CSPS)

Melha Rout Biel, Executive Director and PI
Bill Gueth Kueil Walhook, Senior Research Fellow

African Population and Health Research Centre

Patterson Siema, Director of Policy Engagement and Communications
Moreen Nkonge, Communications Officer
Grace Kibunja, Research Officer

Uganda NCD Alliance

Susan Nakireka, Head of Uganda NCD Alliance

IDHI

Dricile Ratib

Danish Red Cross

Mette Norling Schmidt, Senior Advisor, Migration and Displacement
Mohammed Jaufar Zainulabdeen, Head of Country Office South Sudan
Sylvia Khamati Logendo, Regional Health Delegate – Africa Region

During a humanitarian crisis, people may seek refuge in another and more secure part of their country, becoming internally displaced or cross national borders into neighbouring countries, and temporarily stay in refugee camps or settlements. Others may gravitate towards urban areas and live as undocumented migrants. Past and more recent internal conflicts in South Sudan have forced millions to flee violence, poverty and hunger – resulting in different kinds of mobility patterns. An estimated 1.47 million South Sudanese are internally displaced, and more than 920,000 have sought refuge in Uganda, making it the third busiest migration corridor in Africa. This mobility has important public health implications, not least for the growing number of forcibly displaced persons at risk of, or affected by, cardiometabolic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.

CONTINUITY seeks to develop an understanding of the intersections between mobility, community support and (dis)continuity of cardiometabolic disease care. Specifically, CONTINUITY will empirically reveal the contours of cardiometabolic disease care practices at both household, community, and health systems levels, and examine the way they intersect with their past, current, and imagined mobilities to shape (dis)continuities of care. Such understanding paves the way for conceptualizing cardiometabolic health-enabling environments and strengthening health systems for forcibly displaced persons.

Through community-based participatory research, CONTINUITY aims to make three advances to research and global health practice:

1. Empirically reveal the health service, mobility and community factors and patterns that shape FDPs (dis)continuity of care, as well as the severity of their cardiometabolic disease.
2. Develop theoretically-informed understandings of ‘cardiometabolic health-enabling environments’ that encapsulate the pathways through which community life, fragmented health systems and mobility come together to shape FDPs (dis)continuity of cardiometabolic disease care.
3. Co-produce capacity building strategies for creating environments and ‘mobility-competent’ health services that enable continuity of cardiometabolic disease care for FDPs, targeting local, national and regional policy makers and health systems.