Can Building Research Capacity Abroad Stop the Next Pandemic?

Public health threats don’t stop at borders, and neither should the work to stop them. 

At the University of Maryland School of Nursing, Veronica P.S. Njie-Carr, PhD, RN, ACNS-BC, FWACN, is leading a cross-continental effort to build research capacity where it’s needed the most. With funding from the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health, she’s collaborating with partners in The Gambia to train future generations of health professionals in research ethics and methodology, building the foundation for a stronger, faster response to health crises before they spread. 

“We are training health professionals and research scholars to conduct research with high ethical standards and scientific rigor to address the urgent health needs in The Gambia,” Njie-Carr said. “This work strengthens global health systems as well as human capacity to protect all of us.” 

Those urgent needs include HIV, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer, COVID, and Mpox. Njie-Carr’s efforts have encompassed launching two academic programs in research ethics and methodology — a postgraduate certificate and a master’s degree — as well as implementing professional development activities through workshops and conferences, and a formal mentoring program with collaborators at the University of the Gambia, Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia, and partners at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and the University of Ghana. Recent graduates are already stepping into leadership roles, helping to draft national ethics frameworks, joining environmental research ethics initiatives in climate science, and pursuing PhDs to continue their work. 

Njie-Carr emphasized that preparing for the next outbreak means investing in public health systems that can contain disease at its source. “If capacity development work is not taking place in other countries,” she said, “we then open doors for diseases to cross borders.” 

In a new video Q&A, Njie-Carr shares why global health begins with local expertise. You can read a few of her answers below or watch and listen as she discusses this vital mission. 

Questions

Why is it important to build research capacity abroad? How does your work help protect public health here in the United States?

“It’s very important to understand that Congress would not have appropriated funds for global health research and education if it wasn’t in the interest of the American people. As the representative Tom Cole, once noted, ‘I’d rather fight Ebola in West Africa than in West Dallas.’ That statement is telling because it reminds us that we should contain diseases where they originate,” she said, adding, “It also reminds us that borders are fluid, and we live in an ever-interconnected world.”

What are the risks if other countries don’t build strong public health research systems?

“If capacity development work is not taking place in other countries, we then open doors for diseases to cross borders,” Njie-Carr said. 

She added a lack of capacity development — whether focused on people or infrastructure — would leave the door open to other problems, and noted, “So we are mitigating these by the capacity development work we’re doing through the funding from the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health.”