Webinar series
The CIH-CISMAC Research School holds monthly webinars for researchers where junior and senior scientists discuss topics of their interest.
Main content
About the seminar series
The webinars alternate between a selected topic of general interest and meetings with presentation of PhD proposals or other work in progress.
The webinars strengthen the links between CISMAC’s partner institutions and CIH, and fosters linkages to other researchers at the University of Bergen and in its collaborating low- and middle-income country research institutions.
2025 - spring semester
Date: February 12
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: "Implementation research to promote treatment of pneumonia in under-five children in a North Indian district”.
Presenter: Barsha G. Pathak
Date: January 08
Time: 12:00-13:30 CET
Title: Implementation Research- What? Why? How?
Presenter: Sarmila Mazumder
2024 - fall semester
Date: December 11
Time: 13:00-14:00
Tentative title: Challenging implications of the politicization of maternal death reporting: Case studies from Tanzania and Ethiopia
Presenter: Astrid Blystad and Karen Marie Moland
Date: November 13 (Cancelled. Will be rescheduled for spring 2025)
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: TBA
Presenter: Sarmila Mazumder
Date: October 2
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Economic support, comprehensive sexuality education and community dialogue for girls' empowerment in Zambia
Presenter: Ingvild Fossgard Sandøy, Hanne Keyser Hegdahl and Mweetwa Mudenda
Date: September 11
Time: 12:30-14:00
Titles: Single Cleansing of The Umbilical Cord Stump with Chlorhexidine to Prevent Newborn Infections: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Uganda,
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Exposure and Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: A Cohort Study
Presenters: Victoria Nankabirwa and Halvor Sommerfelt
Date: August 14
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Impact of an integrated intervention package during preconception, pregnancy, and early childhood on biomarkers of infant growth in the first 6 months of life: A sub study in WINGS
Presenter: Ranadip Chowdhury
2024 - spring semester
Date: June 19
Time: 13:00-14:30
Title: Labour augmentation with oxytocin in low- and lower-middle-income countries
Presenter: Monica Lauridsen Kujabi
Date: May 15 (Cancelled. Is rescheduled for fall 2024)
Time: 12:30-14:00
Tentative title: MATRISET
Presenter: Astrid Blystad and Karen Marie Moland
Date: April 17 (Cancelled. Is rescheduled for fall 2024)
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: TBA
Presenter: Ingvild Fossgard Sandøy
Date: March 20
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Labour progression in urban resource-constrained maternity units - An appeal for change
Presenter: Monica Lauridsen Kujabi
2023 - fall semester
Date: December 13
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: 'Zinc as adjunct treatment for clinical severe infection in young infants'
Presenter: Dr. Nitya Wadhwa
Date: August 16
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: "Quality Improvement Initiative to Improve the Duration of Kangaroo Mother Care in the Facility, South India".
Presenter: Dr. Sathya Jeganathan
2023 - spring semester
Date: April 12
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: : Assumptions and estimation of complier-average causal effect in RCTs
Presenter: Hugo Cogo Moreira
Date: March 08
Time: CANCELLED, will be rescheduled.
Title: Labour augmentation with oxytocin in low- and lower-middle-income countries
Presenter: Monica Lauridsen Kujabi
Date: February 22
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Effects of Result-based Financing on maternal, neonatal and child health care services in Tanzania.
(Eskindir Loha, Ottar Mæstad, Vincent Somville, Peter Binyaruka, Jo Borghi)
Presenter: Eskindir Loha
Date: January 11
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: What are the consequences of vitamin B12 deficiency in early life, what do we know, what are the remaining research questions, and how should we address these?
- and how has CISMAC contributed to generating the evidence
Presenter: Tor Strand
2022 - fall semester
Date: December 14
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: "Impact of a package of health, nutrition, psychosocial support, and WaSH interventions delivered during preconception, pregnancy, and early childhood periods on birth outcomes and on linear growth at 24 months of age: factorial, individually randomised controlled trial"
Presenters: Dr. Sunita Taneja and Dr. Ranadip Chowdhury.
Date: November 9
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: How to deal with lack of adherence in Randomized Controlled trial: new alternatives to Intention-to-treat applied to trials in education
Presenters: Hugo Cogo-Moreira
Date: October 12
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Effect of kangaroo mother care initiated in community settings on financial risk protection of low-income households: A randomized controlled trial
Presenters: Tarun Choudhary
Date: September 28
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Effect of community-initiated kangaroo mother care on breastfeeding performance in low birthweight infants: A randomized clinical trial
Presenter: Bireshwar Sinha
2022 - spring semester
Date: March 30.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Chapter 12 (Using Regression Models in Epidemiologic Analysis)
Presenter: Monica Kujabi
Date: March 16.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Chapter 10 (Controlling Confounding by Stratifying Data)
Presenter: Farhan Yusuf
Date: March 2.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Chapter 9 (Analyzing Simple Epidemiologic Data)
Presenter: Ravi Upadhyay and Ranadip Chowdhury
Date: Feb 16.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Chapter 8 (Random Error and the Role of Statistics)
Presenter: Mahima Venkateswaran
Date: Feb 2.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Chapter 7 (Dealing with Biases)
Presenter: Eleni Zoumpoulia Papadopoulou
Date: Jan 19
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Chapter 5 (Types of Epidemiologic Studies)
Presenter: Catherine Schwinger
Date: Jan 5
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Chapter 3 (recap) and Chapter 11 (Measuring Interactions)
Presenters: Tarun Choudhary and Bireshwar Sinha
2021 - Fall semester
1) 11 August
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: "How can India and Tanzania most efficiently reduce neonatal mortality to 12 per 1000 live births or less"
Presenter: Usha Dingra
2) 8 September
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: "Effect of ciKMC on fecal biomarkers of gut function in low birthweight infants"
Presenter: Bireshwar Sinha
3) 13 October
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Can benefits of early interventions sustain during primary grades? Findings from a follow-up evaluation of a rural, disadvantaged cohort in Pakistan
Presenter: Muneera Abdul Rasheed
4) 10 November
Time: 12:30-13:20
Title: Brief information about the two back-to-back courses in April 2022
Discussion of Chapter 1 and the first part of Chapter 3 of Professor Kenneth J. Rothman’s book “Epidemiology – an introduction”, video content and Prof. Rothman’s paper from 1976.
Presenters: Professor Halvor Sommerfelt
5) 24 November
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Recap of webinar Nov 10 + Chapters 1, 2 and 3
Presenter: Professor Halvor Sommerfelt
6) 8 December
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Chapter 4 (Measuring Disease Occurrence and Causal Effects)
Presenter: Professor Halvor Sommerfelt
7) 22 December
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
Prevalence, Time-to-event analysis, Chapter 4: Causal effectsDate:
Presenters: Halvor Sommerfelt with Eleni Zoumpoulia Papadopoulou, Josephine Tumuhamye and David Mukunya
2021 - Spring semester
1) 03 February
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: A digital health registry with clinical decision support for improving quality of antenatal care in Palestine (eRegQual): a cluster-randomized controlled trial
Presenter: Mahima Venkateswaran
2) 10 March
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title:“Effect of Community-Initiated Kangaroo Mother Care on catastrophic out of pocket expenditure and impoverishment: An Equity Randomized Controlled Trial”
Presenter:Tarun Choudhary
3) 14 April
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title:“The importance and challenges of long-term follow-up in studies on neurodevelopment. Experiences from Nepal.”
Presenters:The CISMAC-B12 Nepal team.
4) 19 May
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Catch up growth in childhood and association with neurodevelopment
Presenters: Ravi Upadhyay
5) 09 June
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: “The effectiveness of a girls´empowerment programme on early childbearing and grade 9 completion in rural Zambia: A cluster randomized trial”.
Presenter: Ingvild Sandøy
2020 - Fall semester
1) 09 September
Time: 13:30-15:00 CET
Title: PART 1, Epidemiologic considerations around a case-control study of oxytocin (mis?)use and baby survival.
Presenter: Halvor Sommerfelt and Sanjana Mohan
2) 23 September
Time: 14:00-15:30 CET
Title: PART 2, Epidemiologic considerations around a case-control study of oxytocin (mis?)use and baby survival.
Presenter: Halvor Sommerfelt
3) 07 October
Time: 12:30-14:00 CET
Tentative title: “Effects of economic support and community dialogue on adolescent sexual behavior: findings from the RISE trial”
Presenter: Hanne Keyser Hegdahl
4) 21 October
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: PART 3, Epidemiologic considerations (around a case-control study of oxytocin (mis?)use and baby survival.)
Presenter: Halvor Sommerfelt, Bireshwar Sinha, Hanne Keyser Hegdahl.
5) 18 November
Time: 12:30-14:00 CET
Title: Health Equity Impact of Community Initiated Kangaroo Mother Care (ciKMC)
Presenter: Tarun Shankar Choudhary and Kjell Arne Johansson
6) 02 December
Time: 12:30-14:00 CET
Title: DSMBs – when and why they are needed, their organization and operation.
Presenter: Jose Martines with experience-sharing inputs from Simon Cousens of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Rajiv Bahl of WHO.
2020 - spring semester
1) 13 February
This webinar will be a live streaming of a PhD defense
Time: 09:15 CET and 11.15 CET
Topic:
Trial lecture: “Strengths and challenges of complex community based interventions for maternal newborn and child health”.
PhD Defense: “Newborn care practices in Northern Uganda: Studies on breastfeeding, decision-making and hypothermia”
Presenter: David Mukunya
2) 03 March
This webinar will be a live streaming of a PhD defense
Time: 09:15 CET and 11.15 CET
Topic:
Trial lecture: “Involving future users in the design of health apps: methodologies and methods”
PhD Defense: “Designing usable mobile forms for collection of health data in Uganda”
Presenter: Alice Mugisha
3) 27 March
This webinar will be a live streaming of a PhD defense
Time: 09:15 CET and 11.15 CET
Topic:
Trial lecture: "Global newborn mortality: What are the game changers?"
PhD Defense: "No cry at birth Neonatal - resuscitation in low-resource settings: role of the laryngeal mask airway"
Presenter: Nicolas Pejovic
4) 06 May
Time: 12:30 CET
Topic: “Building multivariable models for epidemiological analyses”
Presenter: David Mukunya
5) 03 June
Time: 12:30 CET
Topic: "Multivariable regression to analyze data from a Randomized controlled trial (RCT) of community-initiated Kangaroo Mother Care and postartum depression: Why and when to adjust for covariates in an RCT?"
Presenter: Bireshwar Sinha
2019 - fall semester
1) 3 October,
Time:12:00-13:30 CET
Topic: “From paperwork to practice – Rural Health bureaucrats and the Zambian abortion Policy”
Presenter: Marte Haaland
2) 5 November
Time:(tentative) Trial Lecture:09:15 CET, PhD Defence 11:15 CET
This webinar will be a live streaming of the PhD defense by CISMAC PhD candidate, Mahima Venkateswaran
Title of PhD: “Attributes and consequences of health information systems data for antenatal care. Health status, health system performance and policy”
Title of trial lecture:“Enabling environment for digital health: supporting sustainability, policy decisions and clinical decision making”
3) 2 December
Time:(tentative) 12:00-13:30 CET
Tentative title: “Presentation based on the NeoSupra Trial”
Lead: Thorkild Tylleskär
2019 - spring semester
1) 9th January
Topic: Fetal growth variation and global consequences
Invited speaker: Professor Torvid Kiserud, Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen
2) 6th February
Kjersti Mørkrid Blom-Bakke, Norwegian Institute of Public Health:
"The use of eRegistry in Palestine to implement the 2013 WHO Gestational Diabetes mellitus criteria"
Ingrid Friberg, Norwegian Institute of Public Health:
"The use of data from eRegistries to inform decision: the delivery care model"
3) 6th March
Topic: Instrumental Variable Analysis: Measuring the "true" effect when trial intervention is not delivered with optimal fidelity. Relevance for CISMAC studies.
Lead: Øystein Ariansen Haaland
4) 3rd April - no webinar
5) 16th May (NB: date!)
Topic: Do fathers’ environment before conception matter for the health of his future offspring? Identifying age windows with higher susceptibility to environmental exposures
Lead: Cecilie Svanes
2018 - autumn semester
7) 5th September
Topic: Training research staff for community-based early childhood development studies: Experience from rural Pakistan
Lead: Muneera Rasheed
8) 3rd October
Topic: The importance and challenges of achieving high sensitivity and specificity in outcome assessment in randomized controlled trials.
Leads: Ranadeep Chowdhury, Catherine Schwinger, Halvor Sommerfelt
9) 7th November
PhD project presentation: Mahima Venkateswaran, Norwegian Public Health Institute:
Antenatal care metrics – analyses of data from an electronic registry for maternal and newborn health.
PhD project presentation: David Mukunya
Breastfeeding initiation and morbidity risk in Lira district, Northern Uganda
10) 21th November (NB! Change in time: 13:00-14:00)
PhD project presentation: Susanna Myrnerts Höök and Nicolas Pejovic:
Enhancing performance during neonatal resuscitation: the NeoSupra trial and ancillary studies
11) 5th December
PhD project presentation: Ravi Upadhyay, Society for Applied Studies, India:
Effect of high quality and increased quantity of protein to infants aged 6 to 12 months on their neurodevelopmental outcomes at 24 months of age.
2018 - spring semester
1) 17th January
Topic: High loss to follow up in RCTs – what can go wrong and how to minimize
Lead: Halvor Sommerfelt. Contributors: Sarmila Mazumder, Victoria Nankabirwa, Bireshwar Sinha, Halvor Sommerfelt
2) 7th February
Topic: "Analysis of growth in young children - the LMS method and the SITAR growth model."
Invited speaker: Professor Tim Cole, University College of London.
3) 7th March
PhD project presentation: Bireshwar Sinha, SAS-India: "Effect of community initiated kangaroo mother care in low birth weight infants on infant breast milk intake, gut inflammation, maternal depressive symptoms and stress."
4) 4th April
Topic: "How to secure high fidelity and quality of the delivery of the intervention(s) in RCTs"
Lead: Ingvild Fossgard Sandøy. There will be contributions from different CISMAC studies.
5) 2nd May
Topic: Statistical power in RCTs Why does CISMAC insist on so high statistical power? Relevance for Getting Research into Policy and Practice (GRIPP)
Leads: Halvor Sommerfelt and José C. Martines.
6) 6th June
PhD project presentation: Olive Jackie Namugga, School of Public Health, Makerere University, Uganda:
Measuring body temperature in young infants to identify clinical severe infection; axillary and infrared tympanic membrane temperature measurements.
PhD project presentation: Josephine Tumuhamye, School of Public Health, Makerere University, Uganda:
Colonization of the birth canal and infections in newborns in Uganda: Etiology, antibiotic resistance of potential pathogens and factors associated.
web-link
We use Zoom for the webinars. Link will be sent out prior to each meeting to everyone on our e-mail list. If you would like to recieve an invitation please send an e-mail to iselin.kvamme@uib.no
Ideas for topics
When opportunities for particularly interesting talks/seminars suitable for online presentations arise, we may change the schedule accordingly. Needless to say, such changes will be made in agreement with the presenters of scheduled webinars and will be announced as early as possible, and no later than two weeks prior to a specifically scheduled webinar.
If you have ideas for topics that could be of general interest to CISMAC researchers, please write to iselin.kvamme@uib.no and Ingvild.sandoy@uib.no.
Please help us spread this information about the webinars with other members of your research team.
