Examples of Long-Term Projects:

• Road traffic safety. Road traffic injury has grown rapidly in Ghana, and is a leading cause of injury and death. The majority of road traffic injuries impact pedestrians, and many of them are children. There is a growing proportion of occupant injuries along with the rise in vehicle traffic. There are many beneficial practices (use of public transportation, heavy pedestrian traffic, favorable legislative environment, developing traffic injury surveillance systems) to which many U.S. cities aspire. Ghana has built an impressive network of data systems for analyzing road traffic injuries and is working with partners such as the BRRI and the National Road Safety Commission to identify and implement strategies to reduce road injury. Research areas include speed control, measures to reduce pedestrian injury, commercial driving risk, and measures to improve the safety of public transportation.
• Epidemiology and surveillance systems for injury control. Reliable estimates of injury incidence and disability are critical for identifying and implementing policies for national safety. Population based injury surveillance systems are largely absent in developing countries. Research areas include the creative use of existing population-based surveillance measures which include injury-related data elements, and development of analytical tools to derive estimates of injury burden from pre-hospital data, hospital records, morgue data, police reports and health surveys. 
• Development and enforcement of standards for trauma care. Developing standards for levels of trauma care (e.g.,  trauma center verification) has been a foundation of trauma system development in high income countries. The World Health Organization has developed similar standards, oriented for the circumstances of low and middle income countries. These standards have been used in several countries to identify opportunities for low-cost and sustainable improvements in resources for trauma care. Research areas include the identification of deficiencies in critically important resources that could be sustainably improved through better organization and planning, at minimal cost. 
• Improving pre-hospital care for injured patients. The Ghana National Ambulance Service currently covers only a small percent of the need in Ghana, with many areas without access to ambulance service. This has major policy implications globally, as most of the world’s population does not currently have access to systematic pre-hospital care. As the National Ambulance Service expands, there are opportunities to compare areas with new access to formal pre-hospital care (e.g., ambulances) with the current models of pre-hospital care (e.g., wherein bystanders or relatives bring injured persons to hospitals). Research questions include analysis of the impact of pre-hospital care on outcomes, study of specific injury care where there is heavy use of traditional healers (e.g., bone-setters for fracture care), and application of systems approaches to identifying areas of heavy need and efficient resource utilization.
• Reducing alcohol-related injury. Alcohol use is a pervasive risk factor for risk of all trauma, including motor vehicle crashes, pedestrian injury, violence and falls. Ghana has progressive drunk driving laws but more research is needed to consider the prevalence of alcohol use and risk for injury, as well as research which identifies intervention strategies.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.us.fulbrightonline.org/countries/selectedcountry/ghana