The Yale Institute for Global Health (YIGH) has selected Sunil Parikh, associate professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases, Yale School of Public Health, and Morgan Lippitt Prust, assistant professor of neurology, Yale School of Medicine, to receive YIGH Global Health Spark Awards for their work focusing on malaria and improved care for stroke patients in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Each recipient will receive an award for $10,000 and were selected based on their technical merit, population impact, and long-reaching implications for future global health work.
Parikh will use Spark Award funding to generate data related to photoacoustic flow cytometry, a noninvasive method of malaria diagnosis in humans through detection of rare disease-associated circulating markers in blood. “PAFC has the potential to significantly advance diagnostic capacity, while also enabling us to understand parasite dynamics in real-time,” says Parikh, who will lead the research at established sites in Africa.
Prust plans to use his award money to assess the implementation of the low-cost, low-tech interventions which would include protocolized dysphagia screening and oral hygiene care in adults with acute stroke admitted to the University Teaching Hospital in Zambia, a large tertiary care center with a high volume of stroke. “I’m hopeful the data generated in this project will serve as the basis for further research into the implementation of interventions that improve quality of care for patients with stroke and other acute neurologic disorders in LMICs,” says Prust.
YIGH created the Global Health Spark Award to support YIGH-affiliated faculty across the spectrum of research and implementation science as they identify, coordinate, and/or prepare for global health work. The awards are intended to “spark” a larger scope of work which could include the preparation and submission of a proposal for a larger grant opportunity or catalyzing a sustainable scope of work that contributes to the recipient’s career development.