Trinidad and Tobago

Strengthening of international research partnerships and consolidation of emerging research networks

West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine campus, Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). There is currently a Memorandum of Understanding between these two institutions that supports regular exchanges of students and staff. Complementing this is the strong relationship being developed between Public Health Ontario and the Caribbean Health Research Council (CHRC). This proposal will bring together the existing connections among research team members and serve to strengthen existing collaborations among the partner institutions UofT, UWI, T&T Ministry of Health (MoH), Public Health Ontario and the CHRC.

The primary objectives of the current proposal are: (i) to bring together a diverse group of researchers and stakeholders from Canada and T&T to assess the facilitators and barriers to the creation of a Public health observatory in T&T, which could serve as a model for other Caribbean countries, and (ii) to develop criteria for success of public health observatories. The partnership will bring together Canadian researchers who have been involved with the creation of similar infrastructure in Ontario, and are currently engaged in researching metrics for evaluating the impact of provision of timely health information to public health practitioners. This collaboration will identify linkages, partnerships and associations among stakeholders interested in monitoring and improving public health in the English speaking Caribbean and Canada to facilitate future joint projects. The proposed collaboration also has value-added benefits given that lessons learnt in two diverse public health settings will inform public health and health systems decision-making in both the Caribbean and Canada, and globally.